Calder's use of vivid reds, blues, yellows and whites, set off by black lines, make "Music Maestro Please,” undated, a characteristically attention-getting color lithograph. Eli Klein Fine Art, New York City.
:Alexander Calder, one of America's best-known and best-loved sculptors, famed for his kinetic abstract mobiles and huge grounded stabiles, was in many ways an artistic Renaissance man. In addition to his celebrated sculpture, he excelled at creating paintings, drawings, book illustrations, jewelry, tapestry, toys and stage sets. His effervescent personality infused all facets of his oeuvre with elegance, vigor — and fun.
Throughout his long career, Calder created scores and scores of etchings and lithographic prints. In terms of style and subjects, many reflected links between his graphic art and his famous sculptural works.
As its title suggests, "Alexander Calder: Printmaker," an exhibition on view at the Bruce Museum through January 31, features nearly 30 of his fine arts prints, along with several watercolors and small pieces of sculpture. They demonstrate his long-term interest in making prints and his proficiency in a number of printing techniques.
The exhibition is co-curated by the Bruce's director of education, Robin Garr, and guest curated by Jodi Roberts, a doctoral candidate at New York University Institute of Fine Arts. Garr notes that this is the first exhibition ever devoted to Calder's printmaking work.
In addition to showcasing the quality of Calder's print work, Roberts observes that his "printed images shed light on his working process and provide insight into extra-aesthetic concerns difficult to glean from his sculpture alone."
The third-generation sculptor in his family, Calder (1898–1976) was born near Philadelphia, the grandson of Scottish-born Alexander Milne Calder (1846–1923), whose classical sculpture groups festoon the city hall of the City of Brotherly Love and whose giant, stalwart William Penn stands atop the imposing building.
This 1952 photograph by Gordon Parks shows Calder at the top of his game working on one of his famous mobiles. Marcel Duchamp coined the term "mobile” for Calder's kinetic constructions. Courtesy of the Gordon Parks Foundation.
Young Alexander's father, Alexander Sterling Calder (1870–1945), tentatively switched from Beaux-Arts to a more modern style in the course of his career. His "Swann Memorial Fountain," 1924, on Philadelphia's Logan Circle, marked a "stylistic transition," according to art historian Wayne Craven. It represented a compromise between his traditional style and avant-garde "theories of simplification and abstraction." Craven notes that the father, who had a very successful career, never progressed much further toward Modernism, adding, "It would be for his son, whose wire figures were then beginning to attract attention, to push ahead the frontier of Modern art."
Alexander Calder earned a degree in mechanical engineering at Stevens Institute of Technology, but switched focus and enrolled at the Art Students League in 1923. With the assistance of such teachers as Guy Pene du Bois, Boardman Robinson and John Sloan, he was introduced to printmaking and mastered drawing techniques to the point that he could complete a picture without lifting his pen. 'I seemed to have a knack," he observed after sketching people on the subway, "for doing it with a single line."
Calder's reductive linear approach, filled with wit, economical strokes and an ability to capture the essence of his subjects, lent itself to the lighthearted, abbreviated caricatures that were in vogue at the time.
