Alexander Calder
1898 - 1976

Standing Mobile. Ca. 1950s.
Metal. Standing mobile made of sheet metal and metal wire, colored.
Unique work. Ca. 23 x 20 x 9 cm (9 x 7.8 x 3.5 in).

The work was submitted in its original form to the Calder Foundation, New York.
The individual elements have been proven to originate from Alexander Calder and, in their form, movement, and balance, display his characteristic signature.
The way in which the current configuration of the elements came into being can no longer be clearly reconstructed; however, it no longer corresponds to the arrangement originally conceived by the artist. The work therefore
remains without an archive number. In the spirit of Calder’s experimental works of the 1950s, this version also reveals a fascinating interplay of movement and balance. The work was later sold in this condition at Sotheby’s, London, on June 26, 1986.

• At the end of the 1930s, Calder created his first “ Standing Mobiles,” for which he mounted his filigree mobiles on stationary, solid bases.
• The sought-after works of the 1950s testify to the perfection of his highly concentrated formal language and kinetic principles.
• Fascinating dualism: delicate balance and strict geometry, solidity and delicate lightness, rest and movement.
• In 1952, Alexander Calder represented the United States at the XXVI Venice Biennale and won the Grand Prize for Sculpture.
• Comparable Standing Mobiles are part of world-renowned museum collections, including the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, the San Francisco Museum of Art, and the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
• Part of an acclaind private collection in Berlin for 40 years.

PROVENANCE: Private collection, Berlin (acquired in 1986, Sotheby's London).

LITERATURE: Sotheby's, London, Post-War and Contemporary Art. Including the Property from the Collection of the late Charles de Pauw and other owners, June 26,1986, lot 636 (with illu.).