Alexander Calder

Perls Galleries, New York
Acquired from the above by the late owner in 1977

New Orleans, The Arts and Crafts Club of New Orleans, Alexander Calder: Mobiles / Jewelry and Fernand Léger: Gouaches / Drawings, 1941

Calder: Gravity and Grace (exhibition catalogue), Fundación del Museo Guggenheim Bilbao, Bilbao, 2003, illustrated in a black and white group photo p. 9
The Surreal Calder (exhibition catalogue), The Menil Collection, Houston, 2005, illustrated in a black and white group photo p. 103
Calder: Sculptor of Air (exhibition catalogue), Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Rome, 2009, illustrated in a black and white group photo p. 62

Colours: The colours in the catalogue illustration are fairly accurate, although the overall tonality is brighter and more vibrant in the original work, especially the green and orange elements. Condition: This work is in very good original condition. There is minor wear and scattered specks of paint loss in places, most notably to the joints, at the vertical base-section of the tuning fork, and to the smallest red element. There are scattered unobtrusive rub marks to some of the painted metal elements. There is no evidence of any retouching when examined under ultraviolet light.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Elegantly poised in an eternal, dynamic balance, the present work is one of the most significant early mobiles by Alexander Calder ever to appear at auction. Composed of a fluid combination of delicately interlocking wires and a superb balancing of shapes, colours and proportions, it possesses an exquisite lyricism and appears to drift serenely above ground, moving elegantly in an endlessly changing, exquisitely graceful dance. The earthy red of the largest segment – providing a compositional anchor - contrasts to brilliant effect with the smaller elemental forms that hover carefully balanced at the end of the wire ‘antennae’; indeed, in its quivering delicacy and wing-like extremities, Untitled is curiously reminiscent of an airborne insect or exotic butterfly. 

The late 1930s was a crucial period for the evolution of Calder’s sculptural language. His mobiles and stabiles, which had previously looked prone to the pull of gravity, took on a new appearance of light suppleness and motion. Within the current lot, Calder engineers a superb exercise in the opposition of vertical and horizontal elements, with the energetic upward curve of the tallest linear component complementing the resolutely level positioning of the central orange wire. The distinctive shape of a tuning fork can clearly be discerned within the parallel vertical pieces of wire, enriching the visual display with harmonious musical connotations. The concept of the ‘music of the spheres’ can arguably be invoked here: Calder was greatly inspired by models of the universe and the solar system, a fascination that frequently manifested itself in the floating forms and cyclical movements of many of his mobiles. The importance of the cosmos as a source of inspiration was poetically outlined by Calder when he declared that: 'I think … the underlying sense of form in my work has been the system of the universe, or a part of it. For that is rather a large model to work from' (quoted in Jacob Baal-Teshuva, Calder, Cologne, 1998, p. 20).

Untitled was created towards the end of a decade of immense creative development and feverish discovery for Calder, during which time the artist had pioneered and refined his utterly distinctive sculptural language to forge works of increasing complexity and intricacy. Calder’s mastery as a wire sculptor became evident during his time in Paris during the late 1920s, when he achieved widespread acclaim for his wire portraits of well-known figures of the day, as well as for his re-creation of a full scale miniature circus troupe through wire, cloth and wood sculptures. Yet it was a visit to Mondrian’s studio in 1930 that was to provide the impetus that Calder had been looking for, offering the spur for his revolutionary utilisation of dynamism in art. The sight of squares of coloured paper, arranged on the wall in the manner of one of Mondrian’s paintings, inspired in Calder a vision of these objects in motion, a concept that the artist outlined in an interview in 1932: 'Why must art be static?... You look at an abstraction, sculptured or painted, an entirely exciting arrangement of planes, spheres, nuclei, entirely without meaning. It would be perfect but it is always still. The next step in sculpture is motion' (quoted in Howard Greenfield, The Essential Alexander Calder, New York, 2003, p. 67). Calder put these ground-breaking ideas into practice the same year by creating his first true suspended mobile, entitled Small Sphere and Heavy Sphere. Elegantly simple in execution, yet profoundly complex in conception, Small Sphere and Heavy Sphere marked a crucial turning point in Calder’s art, signifying the beginning of a truly revolutionary re-evaluation of sculptural form. Whilst Small Sphere and Heavy Sphere was made up of only two components, the mobiles rapidly increased in size and ambition throughout the 1930s, culminating in the extraordinary layers of geometrical shapes and linear convolutions that make up the present work and other mobiles of the same period. Ultimately, Untitled is a glorious elaboration of the extraordinary potential of kinetic forms within sculpture: a work that brilliantly encapsulates Calder’s astounding creative vision whilst perfectly epitomizing Jean-Paul Sartre’s joyful statement: 'A mobile is a little private celebration' (J.-P. Sartre in ibid., p. 68).