Untitled (The Constellation Mobile)
Scheda
- Numero di inventario
- 1996.120.7
Nel frattempo, nella vita di Alexander Calder
Tutta la vita1939
Daughter born: Mary Calder Rower
1939–1945
The war years: “constellations” instead of aluminium
During the Second World War Calder tries to join the Marines as a camoufleur but is rejected. Adapting to a scarcity of aluminium, he returns to carved wood in a new open form of sculpture called “constellations”.
1940
His first jewellery exhibition at the Willard Gallery
In 1940 the first exhibition of Calder’s jewellery is held, with success, at the Willard Gallery. His pieces are worn by Peggy Guggenheim, Simone de Beauvoir and other celebrities.
1941
A show at Pierre Matisse’s: few buyers
At Calder’s 1941 show with Pierre Matisse, a copy of the gallery’s sales ledger shows, only a few pieces found buyers; Solomon R. Guggenheim paid just $233.34 for one work. In the late 1930s and early 1940s Calder’s works were not highly sought after and, when they sold, it was often for relatively little money.
1942
Calder earrings at the opening of “Art of This Century”
To the opening of her New York gallery, The Art of This Century, Peggy Guggenheim wears one Calder earring and one by Yves Tanguy, to show her equal loyalty to Surrealist and abstract art, which she displays in separate galleries. Calder had given her enormous silver mobile earrings, and she later commissioned from him a hammered-silver headboard that shimmered with dangling fish.
