Beschreibung:

25 Alexander Calder Trepied 1972 painted metal 112 1/4 x 118 1/4 x 124 in. (285.1 x 300.4 x 315 cm) Initialed and dated “AC 72” on the metal element.
Provenance Galerie Maeght, Paris Private Collection Sale: Sotheby’s, New York, Contemporary Art Evening Sale, May 18, 1999, lot 24 Acquired at the above sale by the present owner Exhibited Zurich, Galerie Maeght, Alexander Calder Retrospective, May – July, 1973 Goslar, Germany, Mönchehaus-Museum für Moderne Kunst, Kaiserring Prize, 1977 Vienna Neustadt, Europa Skulptur, 1997 Literature Alexander Calder Retrospective, Galerie Maeght, Zurich, 1973, no. 27 (illustrated) Catalogue Essay When I have used spheres and discs, I have intended that they should represent more than what they just are. More or less as the earth is a sphere, but also has some miles of gas about it, volcanoes upon it, and the moon making circles around it, and as the sun is a sphere—but also is a source of intense heat, the effect of which is felt at great distances. A ball of wood or a disc of metal is rather a dull object without this sense of something emanating from it. ALEXANDER CALDER 1951 (Alexander Calder from Museum of Modern Art Bulletin, vol. 18, no. 3, Spring, 1951) Alexander Calder’s reputation as the world’s greatest abstract sculptor has given him unique prestige in Twentieth Century art. Instead of concentrating on two-dimensional pictures, Calder poured himself into the nature of structure, incorporating color and movement to the extent that his sculptures defy the label of three-dimensional art. Indeed, as they move continuously in a perpetual balance of fated elegance, his sculptures border on a forth dimension, one where the formal relationships of both painting and standing structure cross paths. Calder’s mobiles are themselves a creation of genius, as they continue to fascinate us with their feats of engineering, senses of humor and play, and, of course, abstract beauty and dynamism. The present lot, Trepied, 1972, comes from the final phase of Calder’s career and just four years before his death. In it, we not only see his fascination with grand creations, but also the performative charm and graceful stasis that lends his mobiles a coveted place in art history. Though critics recognize Calder’s childhood creations as his earliest moving sculpture, Calder’s first professional forays into the world of living, breathing sculpture came during his years in Paris during the 1920s. As an amateur sculptor and engineer, he merged his two fields in a work that electrified the avant-garde art world: the “Cirque Calder”. Calder engineered his small-scale circus to fit into several suitcases, then to be reassembled upon their removal. His experimentation with moving structures eventually turned into a passion, and, after several artistic breakthroughs in the 1930s (included his new-found devotion to the principles and work of abstract art), Calder began production of his most recognizable form: the mobile. In reality, Calder’s term reflected a combination of the French words for both “mobile” and “motive”. And, in practice, Calder’s suspension and balance of moving pieces of painted metal and suspension bridges justify the “motive” implied in their label: “It might be said that Calder sculpted less with materials than with the potentiality of motion. This potentiality occurs thanks to the principle of stable equilibrium around which are organized the active masses. Stable equilibrium ensures that the articulated parts of the mobile spontaneously return to their initial state when they are being caused by external circumstance to move away from it (by being blown or pushed). This happens via a series of gradually decreasing oscillations that lend a muscular quality to the way they move. Their movement tends toward immobility, and in this respect it is most unlike the frenetic and somewhat gesticulatory poetics of motion and dynamics that had characterized the avant-garde from futurism onwards”(A. Pierre, Motion-Emotion: the Art of Alexander Calder New York, 1999, p. 8). This technical definition of Calder’s methods of motion indicates that his s