Alexander Calder

Perls Galleries, New York

Dorothy Haas Rautbord, Palm Beach (acquired from the above in 1959)

Christie's, London, 20 May 1998, Lot 76 (consigned by the above)

Private Collection, Barcelona (acquired from the above sale)

Christie’s, London, Living with Art - A Private European Collection, 9 February 2012, Lot 604 (consigned by the above)

Acquired from the above by the late owner 

London, Grosvenor Gallery, Miro: graphics, Calder: mobiles, Ch'i Pai-shih: paintings, October - November 1964, n.p., no. 76 (text)

Colour: The colour in the catalogue illustration is fairly accurate, although the overall tonality is slightly deeper and richer in the original. Condition: This work is in very good condition. There are some small chips to the extreme edges of the elements and base, as visible in the catalogue illustration. Further close inspection reveals two faint short hairline cracks in the paint towards the centre of the yellow element and a few small specks of media accretion to the red base. No restoration is apparent when examined under ultra-violet light.
"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."

In an astonishing demonstration of precision, balance, and movement, Alexander Calder’s Two Legs and a Belly features a constellation of coloured metal discs that are delicately suspended in space. The present work is beautiful in its simple minimalism – white, yellow, and blue discs poised atop a bold red base – yet also unprecedented in its ingenious structural composition, making this piece one of Calder’s most classic, striking, and elegant expressions of his internationally famous mobiles.

Evocatively, the title of the present work transforms the architectonic abstract shapes into a series of natural biomorphic forms. The red base of this standing mobile suggests a slender body with two legs and a belly, bowing in graceful curtsey. Here, the cascading interconnected metal wires are comparable to the bones in our spine, in our arms, and in our extremities, allowing the present work to reach out and move with all the charm of a skilled ballet dancer, or like the cantilevered arms of a tree swaying in the breeze. In his own words, Calder states that “the idea of detached bodies floating in space, of different sizes and densities, perhaps of different colours and temperatures some at rest, while others move in peculiar manners seems to me the ideal source of form”, suggesting his preference for the organic, despite his use of industrial materials (Alexander Calder, ‘What Abstract Art Means to Me’, Museum of Modern Art Bulletin, Vol. 18, No. 3, Spring 1951, pp. 8-9).

In referring to ‘bodies floating in space’, Calder brings to mind the spectacle of circus acrobats on tightropes, which he used to illustrate and report on for the newspaper tabloid National Police Gazette (Isabelle Dervaux cited in: Exh. Pamphlet, Washington, National Gallery of Art, Alexander Calder 1898-1976, 1998, p. 2). Calder’s fascination with the circus reappears in unexpected ways throughout his entire career. In particular, the weightless balancing acts resonate with his kinetic sculptures in that their dynamic forms are so precisely balanced that they appear to defy gravity.

It is not only form, but also colour, that makes the present work one of Calder’s most striking sculptural iterations. The primary use of red, blue, and yellow, along with black and white accents, recall the work of Piet Mondrian, whose working environment was instrumental in the artist’s development. In 1930, Calder visited Mondrian’s studio, and there he expressed that “this one visit gave me a shock that started things” (Alexander Calder, An Autobiography in Pictures, New York 1966, p. 113). Although Mondrian is hailed as the pioneer of geometric abstraction and the painter of primary colours, it was Calder who ultimately brought this visual landscape into the three-dimensional realm of space and movement. With Calder’s sculptures, even the softest breath of air initiates an endlessly fascinating and intricate choreography of colours and shapes in lyrical movement. This was such a breakthrough invention for sculpture that in 1931 Marcel Duchamp coined a new word – the ‘mobile’ – to accurately describe the genius of Calder’s kinetic sculptural abstractions.

In the years leading up to the creation of the present work, Calder became the youngest artist to be given a retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 1943. Then, in 1952, he received the Grand Prize for sculpture at the Venice Biennale. Thereafter in the 1950s, Calder’s body of work became dominated by monumental mobile sculptures, having produced three grand-scale public commissions for the John F. Kennedy International Airport, the U.S. Pavillion at the 1958 Brussels World Fair, and the Paris UNESCO headquarters. Thus, while Two Legs and a Belly emerged from Calder’s period of grand-scale production, this piece is nonetheless an extremely personal and intimately scaled work, which pleasantly complements and counter-balances his more monumental public pieces created during the same period.