Book Description

A beautifully produced monograph on one of the greatest sculptors of the twentieth century, comprising a critical essay, a superb selection of colour plates, and invaluable documentation of the artist’s writings, interviews, bibliography and exhibition history. ... Read more

Book Description

This study, now published in paperback, provides the most complete scholarly account yet published of the life and work of Alexander Calder. The son and grandson of acclaimed public sculptors, Calder was trained as an engineer. Working in Europe during the 1920s, he was exposed to a range of avant-garde art, including Cubism, Dada and Surrealism, Constructivism, and works created at the Bauhaus. These sources, together with Calder's abiding interest in American folk art, were fundamental to the evolution of his wood and wire sculptures, which fundamentally challenged the principles of Western sculpture established in antiquity. Calder's creation of the mobile and stabile, two forms of sculpture that are synonymous with modernism, is also analysed in detail. Including a new plate section and 170 halftones, many published here for the first time, Marter's book is an absorbing study of Calder's special contribution to twentieth-century art and culture. ... Read more

Amazon.com

The early work of any artist is often startling, and Alexander Calder's is particularly so. We think of Calder's sculpture as the epitome of crisp, Modernist forms--sometimes moving gently, as the mobiles and stabiles do. And we think of his paintings as filled with abstracted, biomorphic shapes. But the 1998 Calder retrospective showed that this American in Paris between the world wars began as a specialist in smoky nocturnes. This book, the catalog of that exhibition, carries Calder past all that, to 1930, when he was "shocked" into complete abstraction, as he said, by a visit to the studio of Piet Mondrian. The rest of the book details the development of an oeuvre, including bent-wire toys, carnival figures, and circus acrobats, that made Calder among the best-loved of 20th-century artists. It contains pictures of Calder and his beautiful wife Luisa, at home and in the studio in Connecticut and France, and 267 full-color plates of Calder's drawings, sculptures, and paintings. The chronology is interspersed with the chapter essays, which can be somewhat confusing, at first, for readers who like to jump to the back of the book looking for the time line. It is well worth it to slow down for Marla Prather's readable, instructive text, which is filled with quotes from Calder and his contemporaries, and for Alexander S.C. Rower's remarkable chronology, which includes even the Calders' 1972 New York Times advertisement calling for the impeachment of Richard M. Nixon. With great economy, Rower covers every event of importance, in Calder's art and in his life. --Peggy Moorman ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Caulder 5 stars, Publication 5 stars, Writing Style 3.
Calders work leaves me speachless and in its place... inspired, to do more, better. The book(hardcover)itself is beautifully bound and constructed of the highest quality materials, making it a delight to page through. The writing style is rigid and impersonal. Perhaps the author was careful to provide a neutral background for the colorful, animated genius of Calder but it lacks rhythym, speed and ease of use. I loved the tactile experience of the book itself and of course, Calder for his fresh, brilliant and prolific inventiveness. ... Read more

Book Description

Reviews (1)

Alexander Calder
This book is an excellent piece of work. Expertly written and illustrated with an array of beatifully taken colour photographs. This book is a must have for any fan of Calder's work. Superb. ... Read more

Book Description

The American sculptor Alexander Calder (1898-1976) was one of the most inventive and beloved artists of his time. He was best known for his mobiles--hanging, dangling, perfectly balanced innovative sculptures that twist and orbit in the breeze--and for his stabiles, stationary sculptures, often enormous, that grace and enliven public spaces around the world. ... Read more

Book Description

Reviews (1)

Mobiles and a Whole Lot More.
Reading this book about Calder's work makes me want to bend a wire clothes hangar into nifty loops and spirals ... just for the fun of it.

Calder's art is BIG TIME fun, on every scale from immense graceful outdoor sculptures to strikingly elegant necklaces and pins. The book shows the variety of his creations...tapestry motifs, silver and brass cutlery, campaign posters. Check out his clever pull toy for a toddler.

Mobiles is probably Calder's most familiar category of work, but his playful menagerie, including a kangaroo, an elephant, a giraffe, a big bird and a flock of origami-size birds is his most endearing.

Photos and narrative, together, convey the wit and warmth of the sculptor. They offer opportunity to meet Calder, his wife, and their circle of friends.

Calder, by fine example, inspires one to lighten up and love it. This book is written permission to do exactly that, be it, high brow, low brow or no-brow. ... Read more

Amazon.com

What a thrill this book should be for those who have yet to fall in love with sculptor Alexander Calder, who died in 1976.And it will deepen the affection the rest of us already hold for him and his fabulous creations.The author, photographer Pedro Guerrero, first took his camera to Calder's Connecticut studio in 1963, on a routine assignment with an editor from House and Garden magazine. As soon as they arrived at Calder's shambly, magical, jam-packed home, Guerrero could sense that the editor was less than enthralled."If I had known you were going to photograph that room," she later sniffed, "I would have straightened the slipcovers."

"What a thing to notice!" writes Guerrero, who was, as he put it, "plotting my next move." Over the next 13 years, he photographed Calder, often with his beautiful wife, Louisa, in different houses and studios, all of them mesmerizingly overflowing with wire sculptures, homemade toys for their grandchildren, stabiles, mobiles, piles of mail, chairlike contraptions, and sculptural kitchen paraphernalia. "Be careful where you step," Calder warned Guerrero in the studio, "everything here is important."

Calder at Home is as playful and entertaining as the artist's famous Circus acrobats and animals installed (alas, behind glass) in the lobby of the Whitney Museum of American Art. From the foreword by Calder's grandson to Guerrero's final, pensive photograph of the master alchemist, this is a book to dream on. --Peggy Moorman ... Read more

Reviews (2)

A CALDER LOVER'S JOY!
In combination, the photography and text tell an intimate story about Calder, his wife, their life together and what mattered most to them, which you readers find anywhere else. One comes away with the sense that both of them would have enjoyed and appreciated this book as much as I do. I think this is one of the best "art books" published in years.

A very good introduction to Calder's art
I bought this book after my visit to the Calder exhibition in the National Gallery of Art in Washington in May '98. It is really a very nice book. You will discover in the book that some of the masterpieces (Spring or Romulus and Remus) seen in the exhibition were found left in Calder's studio and rearranged by the artist. You will love and enjoy this book ! ... Read more

Reviews (1)

A delightful Book showing the many sides of Calder
I looked for a long time for a Book on Calder before I found this beautiful, yet well priced Volume. It's all here from the Toys and the wonderfully playful "Calder's Circus", to the Mobiles and Stabiles, with Jewelry, Household Objects, Bronzes, Tapestries, Rugs, Sculptures and much more in between. There are many wonderful photographs which showcase the wide array of Calder's Art and of course Calder himself. Also included are a timeline, a useful Bibliography and an interesting "Who's Who in Calder's World." At $ 32.00 this book is a must buy of one of America's most important and influential Artists of all time. ... Read more