Alexander Calder - Litho: Behind the mirror - 1963 - Sold

Lithograph by Alexander Calder. Derriere le Miroir from 1963. Tabletop dimensions: H38 x W28cm. Dimensions representation: H30 x W26cm. The work is not signed.

When purchasing, the work can be picked up in 's-Gravenzande (near The Hague (Scheveningen), Rotterdam and Delft and 5 minutes from the beach). The term for collection, if paid in advance, is very long, in other words, the buyer can collect the work weeks or even months later and, if possible, combine it with a visit to one of the aforementioned cities or the beach. The work can also be sent. Our shipping days are Tuesday and Thursday.

Alexander Calder (July 22, 1898 – November 11, 1976) was an influential American sculptor best known for his innovative mobiles and monumental public sculptures. He introduced movement, abstraction and surrealistic elements into his work and thus brought innovation to kinetic art.

Calder came from a family of sculptors: his grandfather Alexander Milne Calder (who hails from Scotland) sculpted the 250 figures of the Philadelphia City Hall in Philadelphia and his father, Alexander Stirling Calder, was also a renowned sculptor. Calder started as an autodidact and left for Paris in 1926. Here he visited the Académie de la Grande Chaumière and got to know avant-garde contemporaries such as Joan Miró, Hans Arp, Piet Mondrian, Theo van Doesburg and Marcel Duchamp.
In 1929, while traveling to New York, Calder met his future wife, Louisa James, a great-niece of the writer Henry James. They married in 1931.
His first mobiles emerged from a meeting in 1930 with Piet Mondrian in his Parisian studio, which apparently were not subject to the laws of gravity. He eventually became famous with these mobiles and in 1931 he had his first major exhibition in Paris. He was a member of the artist group Abstraction-Création, which influenced his development towards abstraction. In 1934 Calder created his first mobile constructed for outdoor space. He also made his first large abstract sculptures. He called these "stabiles" on the advice of Arp, to distinguish them from the mobiles. It was important to him, stimulated by Marcel Duchamp and others, to connect abstraction and movement. In addition to mobiles, which were moved by air circulation, he made sculptures driven by motors. One such "stable" was Verbend propeller, which was exhibited at the former World Trade Center in New York from 1970 onwards.
For the 1937 World's Fair in Paris, he built a mercury fountain in memory of the victims of mercury mining. The fountain has been in the Fundació Joan Miró museum in Barcelona since 1976. Calder also manufactured jewelry.
Calder is considered one of the most important representatives of kinetic art. Lifelong contact with his friend Joan Miró influenced his artistry.