The Behind C-....-~~---- ·· Downloaded from http://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/memagazineselect/article-pdf/120/12/53/6382001/me-1998-dec2.pdf by guest on 27 September 2021 Ar An art historian investigates the technical grounding of the sculptor's imagination. By Joan M. Marter LEXANDER C ALDER IS renowned as the crea tor o f his experiments with wire, sheet metal, and wood. two of the grea test sc ulptural innovations of this Later, while Calder w as a student at Lowell High Acentury: mobiles, those m agical moving sc ulp­ School in San Francisco, he oft en visited his fa ther's stu ­ tures hang in g in maj o r art muse ums and m o dernist dio on the grounds of the Panama-Paci fi c Exposition of building lobbies ac ross the globe, and stabiles, the large­ 1915 , w here Calder senior was overseeing the design and scale abstract constructions that ]jghten th e mood of oth­ production of conunemorative sc ulpture. Sandy recalled erwise stark public spaces in many cities. Few art lovers his visit to the studio in a large iron workshop: kn ow, however, that prior to se tting out on his highly [IJ was very much interested in th e pointing mac hine successful artistic career, Calder received an engineering for enlarging small sc ulpture. This consisted of two educa tion (predominantly in mechanics) from Stevens parallel needles, one longer than the other, according Institute of Technology in Hoboken, N.J. to the enlargement. It worked with a parall elogram. To the engineer's eye, C alder's mechanical background Downloaded from http://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/memagazineselect/article-pdf/120/12/53/6382001/me-1998-dec2.pdf by guest on 27 September 2021 The small sculpture and the framework for the large nught be sometlUng less than a revelation, given the evi­ sculpture were pl aced o n two turntabl es, which dent technical proficiency exhibited by the thousa nds turned together through sprockets and bicycle chain of artworks-ranging from matchbox-size mobiles to ... I'd be particul arly fasc inated by the lTlechanics, the seven-story-tall stabiles-he produced. Notorious for his rotating lTlOti o ns and the parall el needles o f the reluctance to comment on his own work, Calder has for process. (Calder, A utobiography) several decades fascinated art hjstorians and critics seek­ ing to identifY the sources of his artisti c vision. These Calder's attraction to this pointing device would actual­ analyses have naturally fo cused on influential modern art ly lead, years later, to a m otorized construction entitled movem ents of the 1920s and 1930s, including construc­ Pantograph (1933). But this recollection of Ius youth also tivism, surrealism , D ada, and the Bauhaus school, as indicates that in 191 5 he was more interes ted in tinker­ Calder's main creative antecedents. ing with m ac hines than in claiming Though tlus conventional interpretive Ius position as the third generation of approac h has yielded many useful in­ Calder sculptors in America. sights, the significance of the sculptor's Eventually, Calder's fascinati on with technical and engineering expertise has construction and industrial m aterials become increasingly cl ear in recent led him to decide to study mechanical yea rs. The ways Calder combined his engineering. His parents were pleased; engineering skills and personal ingenu­ they had disc ouraged their children ity with his knowledge of the ava nt­ from beconu ng artists, because it was garde deserve closer considerati on than a life fill ed with hardships and eco­ they have received. Calder 's ac hieve­ nomic uncertainty. " I guess that was ment shows how mechanical engineer­ the only profession I had hea rd of ex­ i.n g principles can have an important, if cept for 'artist,' and [ like mechalucs," un expected, effect on fields outside the wrote Calderin the 1950s. [n1915, profession, particularly on the develop­ Alexander Calder, 1937. Calder enrolled at the Stevens Insti­ ment of a Uluqu e artistic conception. tute, where he obtained a bachelor's Born 100 years ago, "Sandy" Calder was the son and degree in engineering four years later. College records grandson of well-known sculptors who worked in the tra­ indicate that the future artist excell ed in m echanical ditional Bea ux-Arts style. Though inunersed in an artistic drawing, descriptive geometry, mechalu cal engineering lrulieu at home, Calder's innate talent for working with laboratory, and applied b neti cs. mechanical apparatus and m ateri als was encouraged by His training in physics and kineti cs se rved him well in both his parents as well as by ru s fa ther's brother, Ronald his later experiments with motorized devices and with . Calder, the mechanically incli ned member of the fanUl y. wind- driven m obiles made fro m m aterials of varying Fo r example, when Calder was nine years old and weights and densiti es. In the few written statem ents he living in Pasa dena, Calif. , his uncle Ron helped him made about his earl y mobiles, Calder asc ribed som e of construct a special coaster wagon. After this experi ence, his concepts of motion to the influential D adaist M arcel the youngster was eager to set up his own workshop. At Duch amp, the Italian futurists, and the noted cubist that point, according to Calder's autobiography, " [ got Fernand U~ ge r 's film Ballet Meca niq ~ l e, but he used sci­ my first tools, and was given the cellar with its windows entific terminology to explain his method of construct­ as a workshop. M other and Father were all for my efforts ing kineti c devices. T he technical precision and the to build things myse lf .. " There, and in subse qu ent equilibrium found in Calder's later m o to rized and workshops in other homes, the yo ung Calder continued wind- drive n m obiles are partly indebted to the engi­ neering curriculum at Stevens. joa//. M. Marter, a professor of art history. at R u tgers, After graduation, Sandy C alder tried many diffe rent T he State UniIJersity of New j ers ey, i//. New Brunswick, jobs, including an ass ista.ntship to a hydrau]j cs engineer. is the author of A lexand er Calder (Cambridge Unfortunately, none of them proved satisfactory. As his UlI i IJersity Press, 1997, paperback edition). friend Eli zabeth Hawes w rote in 1928, Calder " had to M EC H ANI CA L ENG I NEERI NG IJ ECEMU EI\. 1998 53 spend a lot of time fi nding o ut he things out of wire before-j ewelry, was n't an engineer." For instance, "In toys-but this was my first attempt to June 1922 ... Calder found a position represent an animal in' wire." as a fireman on th e pass enger ship These playful wire animals and fi g- H .F A lexander, traveling from N ew ures occupied him for the next five York to San Francisco via the Panama years and beyond. Calder's cleverly de- Canal. His mechanical ingenuity was signed crea tures and characters, toy- put to use. During the voyage, Calder like works that today might be called ri gged up a baffl e to direct fres h air "acti on fi gures" from their uncanny toward him as he worked in the boil- ability to ape natural postures and mo- er room ." It was on this trip that the tions, gained particular notice in Paris, "wonders of the universe" were w here he now made regular visits. Downloaded from http://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/memagazineselect/article-pdf/120/12/53/6382001/me-1998-dec2.pdf by guest on 27 September 2021 impressed upon him. H e writes in C ald er's amusing crea tions were abl e his auto biog raphy : " It was ea rly to mimic a frog's jump, or the way a one m o rning on a calm sea, o ff duck bobs forwa rd. Eventually, the Guatemala, when over my couch-a artist assembled a troupe of these wire coil of rope-1 saw the beginning of sculptures into his Circus, a miniature a fi ery red sunrise on one side and the wire-frame big top populated by de- moon looking like a silver coin on lightful carnival pel{ormers and circus the other. O f the whole trip this im- animals, which Calder brought to life pressed most of all ; it left me with a in impro mptu performances in his lasting sensation of the solar system ." apartment (a nd for which he som e- According to Calder, he m ade the times charged a fee to pay the rent). final decision to study art after seek- Soon, the American expatriate's exu- ing employm ent w ith a Canadian Aztec Josephine Baker, 1942. berant Circus nights became a much- logging engineer, a friend of his father's, who advise d sought-after diversion for the Parisian avant-garde. him to do what he really wanted to do. Although none In an article for the N ew York Herald in 1927 , C alder of the positions he had found as an engineer really sa tis- wrote: "It seems that during all of this time I could never fi ed him, som e would prove useful in his later work. forget my training at Stevens, for I started experimenting Decades later, for example, Calder would compare his with toys in a mechanical way. I could not experiment mobiles designed for the open air to sailing vessels, and with a mechanism, as it was too expensive and too bulky, in his late yea rs he constructed giant stabiles by using so I built miniature instruments.