John & Geraldine Lilley Museum of Art
Reno, Nevada
The Lilley Museum of Art is located on the main campus of the University of Nevada, Reno.
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Artist: Alexander Calder (American, 1898-1976)
Alexander "Sandy" Calder was born in 1898 in Lawnton, Pennsylvania. His father and grandfather were both well-known sculptors and his mother was a portrait painter. Calder graduated from Stevens Institute of Technology, with a degree in mechanical engineering in 1919. He studied painting at the Arts Students League in New York (1923-1926). Calder became a freelance artist and illustrator. He moved to Paris in 1926 and attended the Académie de la Grande Chaumière. It was then that he began the “Calder Circus.” It was a miniature reproduction of an actual circus. The “Circus” was made from wire, cork, wood, cloth and other easily found materials. One of the methods used to create the “Circus” was the bending of wire to form realistic figures. Calder began to make wire portraits. A combination of a line drawing and of sculpture, these instant portraits represented a new possibility in three-dimensional art.
In the 1930s, after visiting Piet Mondrian's studio, Calder was inspired by the color and composition, he created an entirely new type of abstract art called mobiles. At first these abstract sculptures were motorized. Calder later modified his design to allow free-floating movement, powered only by air currents. The term “mobile” (a pun on the French for “to move” and “motive”) was named by French artist Marcel Duchamp to describe these new kinetic sculptures. Calder became friends with many influential artists, including Joan Mirò, Fernand Léger, Marcel Duchamp, and Yves Tanguy, and joined the Abstraction-Création group in 1931. Calder continued to spend his time between Paris and New York, and he also bought a farm in Roxbury, Connecticut. By 1933 Calder had returned to the United States, where his abstract-organic sculpture, both mobile and stationary, attracted considerable attention and acclaim. He settled in Connecticut and continued to produce innovative works on both a large and small scale. After 1950 Calder spent part of each year in France.
In addition to the monumental sculptures that can be seen in the United States and Europe, Calder applied his whimsical and lyrical sense of design to media as diverse as metal jewelry and theater sets. In 1976, Alexander Calder died. Throughout his life, his commitment to creating work free from the pretensions of the art world and accessible to all, never stopped him from making exquisitely beautiful and important sculpture. In a century that saw the forms of art and literature reinvented regularly, Alexander Calder stands out as one of the great pioneers of his time.
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