{"data":{"id":"2773","type":"artwork","attributes":{"id":2773,"topgoose_id":15201,"portfolio_id":null,"tms_id":2773,"title":"Wooden Bottle with Hairs","display_artist_text":"Alexander Calder","display_date":"1943","accession_number":"80.28.2a-l","dimensions":"Overall: 21 1/4 × 15 3/4 × 12 1/8 in. (54 × 40 × 30.8 cm)","medium":"Wood, steel wire, and nails","department":"collection","classification":"Sculpture","credit_line":"Purchase, with funds from the Howard and Jean Lipman Foundation, Inc. in honor of the Museum's 50th Anniversary","is_virtual":false,"is_portfolio":false,"portfolio_tms_id":null,"portfolio":null,"edition":null,"publication_info":"","description":"\u003cp\u003eAlexander Calder, \u003cem\u003eWooden Bottle with Hairs\u003c/em\u003e, 1943. Wood, steel wire, and nails, overall: 21 1/4 × 15 3/4 × 12 1/8 in. (54 × 40 × 30.8 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase, with funds from the Howard and Jean Lipman Foundation, Inc. in honor of the Museum's 50th Anniversary 80.28.2a-l. © Calder Foundation, New York / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York\u003c/p\u003e","object_label":"\u003cp\u003eDuring World War II, Alexander Calder relied increasingly on wood for his sculpture due to domestic shortages of metal. A skilled wood carver since the late 1920s, he embarked on a new group of constructions in 1942 called \u003ci\u003eConstellations\u003c/i\u003e, an imaginative response to the biomorphic Surrealism of his friends Joan Miró and Jean Arp. For \u003ci\u003eWooden Bottle with Hairs\u003c/i\u003e, Calder carved a curving, bottle-shaped form to which he attached small, pointed black “hairs” that dangle from wires and chains and jiggle when disturbed. Dubbed “ferocious” by the art critic Roberta Smith, who remarked that the piece suggests “nothing so much as a large peanut with a five-day-old beard,” \u003ci\u003eWooden Bottle with Hairs\u003c/i\u003e is indeed a haunting and enigmatic object—as well as a mordantly humorous one.\u003c/p\u003e","ai_alt_text":"A smooth wooden abstract sculpture with multiple dark metal teardrops on thin wires extending outward.","alt_text":null,"visual_description":null,"on_view":false,"created_at":"2017-08-30T17:25:02.000-04:00","updated_at":"2026-02-06T12:01:06.298-05:00","images":[{"id":94621,"url":"https://whitneymedia.org/assets/artwork/2773/80_28_2a-l_vw3_cropped.jpg"}]},"relationships":{"artists":{"data":[{"id":"215","type":"artist"}]}}}}