#mobiles

Pearls Before Swine, 2025

shrink plastic, rubber stamps, colored pencils, freshwater & keshi pearls, brass, sterling silver

Bedtime Bear (Care Bears) with sleeping and bedtime stims!

Untitled, 1948

Alexander Calder

Sheet metal, wire, and paint

27 1/2 x 104 3/4 in.

ALEXANDER CALDER

Crinkly, 1969

Polychrome painted iron

Collection of the National Centre for Visual Arts, on loan to Amboise since 1970

"Why should art be static? When we look at an abstract work – be it a sculpture or a painting – we see an exciting array of planes, spheres and cores devoid of any meaning. It may be perfect, but it is still motionless. The next step in sculpture is movement. " — Remarks made by Alexander Calder in 1932 on his conception of ‘stabiles’ and ‘mobiles’.

Alexander Calder (1898–1976) was one of the greatest American artists of the 20th century.

The inventor of kinetic sculpture, the Pennsylvania-born artist settled in Saché (37) from 1952 onwards. Throughout his career, he created stabiles and mobiles, some of which were manufactured at the Établissements Biémont in Tours (37).

The term ‘stable’ was coined in 1932. It refers to a three-dimensional work comprising one or more forms held in space and balanced on one or more rods. This contrasts with the term ‘mobile’, which refers to a sculpture that can be set in motion by the wind or by a mechanism.

‘Crinkly’ means crumpled or rippled.

The work features a tricolour tripod, in primary colours (red, blue) combined with white and black, reflecting his encounter with the painter Piet Mondrian in 1930. This base forms the fixed element of the work (stabile).

It is topped by a vertical red and black structure on which the moving part rests, consisting of a red horizontal bar.

At its ends are several geometric shapes reminiscent of leaves or petals: a yellow element, a blue circle and a red triangle.

The upper section thus allows movement driven by the force of the wind.