Alexander Calder

Perls Galleries, New York
Stephen Hahn, New York and California (acquired from the above in 1962)
Thence by descent to the present owner

This sculpture is in very good condition. The paint surface is original aside from the blue perforated disc which has been recently repainted, following removal of older flaking paint. The color and brush strokes were carefully matched to the original. The largest black element has scattered small areas of inpainting and consolidation of lifting paint. Minor scattered nicks and losses, primarily around the edges and near the wire rods, are typical of works from this period and of this type. The yellow element is slightly darkened due to normal wear and age.
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.
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Through his remarkable manipulation of metal and wire, Alexander Calder generated a truly groundbreaking corpus that definitively revolutionized the nature of the sculpted form. Liberating sculpture from its previously defining principles of absolute stasis and stability, he embraced instead the dynamics of motion, celebrating the possibilities for organic movement in the visual arts. Calder began his career, and established his international reputation, in the late 1920s with a series of figurative wire sculptures – frequently portraits of well-known figures of the day – yet he remained committed to achieving the elusive breakthrough that would enable him to forge an entirely new form of artistic expression. The answer arrived during a now legendary visit to Piet Mondrian’s studio in 1930, where the sight of squares of colored paper, arranged on the wall in the manner of one of Mondrian’s paintings, inspired Calder to think of the kinetic possibilities of art. In 1932, the same year that he created his first mobile sculpture, Small Sphere and Heavy Sphere, Calder revealed his excitement at the extraordinary new creative world he was in the process of discovering: “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.” (the artist cited in Howard Greenfield, The Essential Alexander Calder, New York, 2003, p. 67) From that seminal moment, Calder remained steadfast in his exploration of sculpture’s potential for kinetic movement, and Double-Perforated Blue from 1958 is exemplary of this artist's inimitably innovative and undeniably significant oeuvre.

The physical components of Double-Perforated Blue comprise the absolute essentials of Calder’s aesthetic. Individually painted metal elements, in the artist’s preferred palette of vibrant primary hues, seem to float within a construction of astonishingly delicate beauty. In the late 1940s Calder began piercing certain components of his mobiles in an effort both to heighten their transparency and surface animation and, to a more technical end, to adjust the physical and visual weight of the work as a whole. Calder stated, “When I cut out my plates I have two things in mind. I want them to be more alive, and I think about balance. Which explains the holes in the plates. The most important thing is that the mobile be able to catch the air. It has to be able to move.” (the artist in 1959, cited in XXE siècle, Homage à Calder, Paris, 1972, p. 98) The pierced blue element, and the smaller black element that perches atop its metal wire diagonally above it, are suspended in perfect counterbalance to one another in Double-Perforated Blue; as the slightest breath of air drifts through their apertures they begin to rotate smoothly and organically, in turn inspiring movement in the vibrant red and singular yellow discs that surround them. The four variously sized flat and horizontal black elements on the opposite end of the work act to stabilize the composition, seamlessly offsetting the ethereal gliding movements of the individual colored shapes as they each pursue their own unique path whilst maintaining an undeniable sense of cohesion and total resolution.

In a catalogue essay for Calder’s seminal 1946 exhibition at Galerie Louis Carré in Paris, the French existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre distilled the unique complexity of the artist’s mobiles: “His mobiles signify nothing, refer to nothing but themselves: they are, that is all; they are absolutes. Chance, ‘the devil’s share,’ is perhaps more important in them than in any other of man’s creations. They have too many possibilities and are too complex for the human mind, even their creator’s, to predict their combinations. Calder establishes a general destiny of motion for each mobile, then he leaves it on its own. It is the time of day, the sun, the station between the servility of a statue and the independence of nature. Each of its evolutions is the inspiration of a split-second. One sees the artist’s main theme, but the mobile embroiders it with a thousand variations. It is a little swing tune, as unique as ephemeral as the sky or the morning. If you have missed it, you have missed it forever.” (Jean-Paul Sartre, “Existentialist on Mobilist,” Art News, 46, December 1947, pp. 22-23) As brilliantly described by Sartre, the best examples of Calder’s mobile sculptures, such as Double-Perforated Blue, are thoughtfully and deliberately composed by him and then left to commune autonomously and naturally with their physical environment, the precise quality of their movements dependent on the slightest atmospheric shift. Ultimately, this serene work perfectly epitomizes the emotions and attitudes suggested in Calder’s own conclusion on the art form he pioneered: “When everything goes right a mobile is a piece of poetry that dances with the joy of life…” (the artist cited in Howard Greenfield, The Essential Alexander Calder, New York, 2003, p. 47)