PIASA proposes on Thursday, December 10th at 6 pm, a design auction based on a selection of pieces by American designers produced in the 1950s to 1970s. On this occasion, several woven creations by the iconic Alexander Calder will be presented for sale.
Emblematic artist of the abstract movement of the 20th century, Alexander Calder expresses his art through multiple supports such as gouache, jewelry, sculpture but also tapestry.
Born in 1898 in Lawnton, Pennsylvania, Alexander Calder comes from a family of artists. A manual from a very young age, he naturally turned to mechanical engineering studies at the Stevens Institute of Technology. In 1923, he decided to study drawing in New York in order to devote himself fully to art. He quickly developed a sculptural style and began to be interested in ways to transcribe movement, the main "material" of his later work. In 1926, he moved to Paris, the hub of art, where he met the major artists of the period such as Marcel Duchamp and Joan Miró. A master in the art of gracefully balancing industrial and natural materials, he is the inventor of the "mobile sculpture" and kinetic art, where lightness prevails in his works, thus breaking with the dense and imposing style of the time.
Alexander Calder (1898-1976)
Pyramid - N°66/100
Estimate: 10000 / 15000 €
From the 1970's, tapestry becomes a new way for Alexander Calder to represent this balance at the same time strange and perfect. These tapestries are endowed with the very graphic style and so representative of the artist, with abstract forms, often poetic and boldly colored. The tapestry is a way to interpret his art and to retranscribe his gouaches on larger formats and a support more complex to work. One finds there abstract motives of primary colors, usual at the artist, as well as white backgrounds which release a large empty page and which remind the art of Piet Mondrian, whom Calder met in his workshop in 1930.
Alexander Calder (1898-1976)
Floating circles - N° 93/100
Estimate: 10000 / 12000 €
Alexander Calder is today one of the most popular artists on the art market. Acclaimed by all the world's most renowned museums, Calder is also present in the most prestigious collections.
Alexander Calder (1898-1976)
Hamac - N°28/100
Estimate: 10000 / 15000 €
