Alexander CalderAmerican, 1898–1976The Jousters
May one see it?
Yes, receiving visitors
On public display.
- Checked
- In this state since
- Source
- The museum
About the sculpture
The violent, adversarial imagery of the medieval joust is transformed into a playful meeting of two fanciful abstract forms. The large and small "knights" do not confront one another, but rather stand at oblique angles--more a composed than confrontational. Both of the stout, tank-like forms are equipped with a long lance that terminates not in a pointed tip but with a benign flat form--a feature that further undermines the traditionally brutal conception of this medieval court spectacle. Of differing sizes, the two forms are united by a shared color scheme of red, white, and black. Alexander Calder committed the latter part of his career to the creation of stabiles--stationary works in contrast to his kinetic mobiles. He produced his first large-scale, sheet metal stabile in 1937. In the 1960s and 1970s Calder created colossal stabiles for public sites around the world.
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This work is one of only a handful of stabiles composed of two completely discrete elements that rest on the ground. Like many of his later stabiles, Calder sent detailed designs of *The Jousters* to an ironworks, which then fabricated the sculpture.
J. Paul Getty Museum
Particulars
- Accession number
- 2005.104.2
In the catalog
Sources
- J. Paul Getty Museum
- Image: J. Paul Getty Museum — ; In Copyright
Meanwhile, in the life of Alexander Calder
The whole life1963
A workshop at Saché above the Chevrière valley
In 1963 Calder settles into a new workshop overlooking the valley of the Lower Chevrière to the village of Saché in Indre-et-Loire, France; he later donates a sculpture to the town, which since 1974 has stood in the town square. Most of his monumental works after 1962 are made at Établissements Biémont in Tours: he makes a model, the engineering department scales it up under his direction, and technicians complete the metalwork.
1964
The retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum
A major retrospective of Calder’s work is held in 1964 at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York.
28 June 1964 – 6 October 1964
Exhibition: Documenta III
