Alexander Calder

Mr. & Mrs. Martin Janis, Sherman Oaks
Private Collection, Los Angeles
Sale: Sotheby's, New York, Contemporary Art, 4 November 1987, Lot 40A
Acquavella Gallery, New York
Private Collection, New York
Hauser & Wirth, Zürich
Acquired directly from the above by the present owner  in 1993

New York, O'Hara Gallery, Alexander Calder: Sculptures, Paintings, Works on Paper, 1993, no. 20
Munich, Haus der Kunst, Elan vital oder das Auge der Eros: Kandinsky, Klee, Arp, Miró, Calder, 1994, n.p., no. 202, pl. 369, illustrated in colour
Stockholm, Moderna Museet, Alexander Calder, 1996, n.p., no. 17, illustrated in colour
Paris, Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Alexander Calder, 1996, p. 67, no. 32, illustrated in colour

Colour: The colours in the catalogue illustration are fairly accurate, although the base has a paler oak hue in the original. The black rods are horizontally balanced in the original. Condition: This work is in very good condition. In consultation with the Calder Foundation, the mobile has been restrung using the correct colour, length, weight, ply and twist of linen and the knots used by the artist, so that the horizontal rods are properly balanced. Small spots of resin have been cleaned from some of the elements. The shiny resin has been removed from the base and a few small splinters have been consolidated.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

One of the most important standing mobile sculptures from the career-defining years of the early 1930s ever to be presented at auction, A Cinq Morceaux de Bois by Alexander Calder represents the exact moment when the famous sculptor's art changed from being based in the figurative world to the abstract, precipitating a fundamental shift in the development of sculpture in the Twentieth Century. Perfectly poised as an ever-changing ballet of moving form and space, A Cinq Morceaux de Bois is an exceptionally rare, unique work that exactly captures the artist's revolutionary vision in its earliest form. With tremendous spatial economy this sculpture creates a self-contained universe of evolution, the elegant simplicity of its organic pure wood forms dancing through space under its curving metal arc.

In the introduction to Calder's 1962 Arts Council retrospective at the Tate James Johnson Sweeney, who had first met Calder in 1933 and became a leading exponent of his work, marks 1934 – the year of this work's execution - as the key turning point in the development of Calder's art, when "the novice stage of his artistic development was over...And the outcome is the Calder we know today – the artist whose work has grown so constantly in imaginative freedom, formal discipline and in poetry" (James Johnson Sweeney in: Exhibition Catalogue, London, Tate, Alexander Calder: Sculpture, Mobiles, 1962, p. 11). This was a year of extraordinary achievement. In March Alfred H. Barr purchased Calder's motorized mobile A Universe for the Museum of Modern Art; in April Calder held his first exhibition at the Pierre Matisse Gallery in New York, having been impressed by an exhibition of Joan Miró's work there earlier that year; and in the summer, having moved to a new home in Roxbury, Connecticut, Calder created his first substantial outdoor sculpture, Steel Fish.  A Cinq Morceaux de Bois was born out of this ferment of creativity and accomplishment and is quite simply a stunning display of the sculptor's incomparable three-dimensional artistic dialect.

Tracing sublime orbits around each other as they dangle imperceptibly from their wire harnesses, the elements of the present work evince Calder's exceptional technical dexterity. The craftsmanship recalls the artist's training at the Stevens Institute of Technology, New Jersey between 1915 and 1919, and his long development of wire animals, performers and maquettes in his infamous Cirque Calder series executed in Paris from 1926. As is typical of his very best works, A Cinq Morceaux de Bois demonstrates Calder's capacity to orientate the movement of his mobiles according to both horizontal and vertical axes to heighten the sense of surface animation.

The present work is the culmination of the groundbreaking artistic experimentation that marked the artist's preceding and highly formative period in Paris. Indeed, "the sources of most aspects of Calder's long career can be found in the works he made in Paris from 1929 until 1933" (Mildred Glimcher, 'Calder in Paris: 1929-1933: Transformation from Object to Gesture", in: Exhibition Catalogue, Barcelona, Fundació Joan Miró, Calder, 1997-98, p. 179). In particular, Calder's visit to Piet Mondrian's studio in 1930 acted as a catalyst to translate the fundamental aesthetic of his art from the representational to abstraction. Although Mondrian's large, light studio was like a spatial equivalent to one of his paintings, it prompted Calder to consider "how fine it would be if everything moved; though Mondrian himself did not approve this idea at all'' (the artist cited in: Exhibition Catalogue, New York, Museum of Modern Art, Alexander Calder, 1955, p. 26).

Shortly after his catharsis Calder explained "Why must art be static? You look at an abstraction, sculptured or painted, an entirely exciting arrangement of planes, spheres, nuclei, entirely without meaning. It would be perfect but it is always still. The next step in sculpture is motion" (the artist in: 'Objects to Art Being Static, So He Keeps it in Motion', New York World-Telegram, 11^th June, 1932). Calder set free a spirited and playful motion that was beyond his control, and in the words of Sweeney he "made space intervene as a constructive factor" (James Johnson Sweeney in: Op Cit, p. 8). When Calder asked Marcel Duchamp in 1931 to suggest a name for his new constructions Duchamp proposed the term "mobiles". Having broken down the boundaries of established sculpture, this unprecedented art form required a new descriptive lexicon. These sculptures caused a sensation in the Paris art world, earned him worldwide recognition and have of course become synonymous with his name. Created immediately after this momentous awakening, A Cinq Morceaux de Bois precisely embodies Calder's invention of sculptural constructs that harmoniously integrate solid shapes with linear, ethereal elements.

Calder's sculpture provides a certain destiny of movement for its forms, but also facilitates an independent life beyond the restrictions of its structure, which is governed by nature's elements. As Jean-Paul Satre later commented, "Calder establishes a general career of movement and then he abandons it; it is the time of day, the sunshine, the heat, the wind which will determine each individual dance. Thus, the object remains always midway between the slavishness of the statue and the independence of natural occurrences; each of its evolutions is an inspiration of the moment" (Jean-Paul Sartre in: Exhibition Catalogue, Paris, Galerie Louis Carré, Alexander Calder, 1946). From an extremely early moment in his epic career, A Cinq Morceaux de Bois is a definitive testament not only to Alexander Calder's technical skill, imaginative genius and talent for organic composition, but also his ability to breathe life into that which was previously inanimate.