Alexander Calder

Alexander Calder is one of the twentieth century's greatest modern artists, best known as the inventor of the mobile. His graceful, well balanced, and impeccably designed kinetic sculptures hang in many of the world's greatest museums. Calder is also world renowned for his large, abstract public sculptures called stabiles, which grace the courtyards of major metropolitan areas from Chicago to Paris. Though abstract, Calder's mature work suggests natural and animal forms and many of his titles lead interpretation in that direction; for example: Whale, 1937; Performing Seal, 1950; and Stegosaurus, 1974. In 1924, Calder began his artistic career at the Art Students League in New York City. Some of his earliest work records animals he saw at the Bronx and Central Park Zoos.