Collecting Calder

July 17–Oct 19, 2014

The Whitney’s collection is the largest repository of Alexander Calder’s work in the world. Collecting Calder, one of two permanent collection displays on the Museum’s fifth-floor mezzanine, presents a selection of Alexander Calder sculptures and drawings, giving equal focus to the two major aspects of the artist’s oeuvre: Calder’s Circus and his later work in abstraction. For the former, Calder employed ordinary materials—wire, string, cork, wood, paper, bits of metal, and cloth—to create a miniature circus, whose acts he staged for friends and patrons as narrator and puppeteer between 1926 and 1931. His later mobiles, inspired in part by his visit to Piet Mondrian’s studio in 1930, use an ingenious system of weights and counterbalances that allowed each piece’s suspended parts to move in response to air currents, retaining the movement of the circus performances. A selection of these works are also on view along with a group of the artist’s stabiles, or static sculptures.

Collecting Calder is organized by Barbara Haskell, Curator.

Artworks

Edward Hopper, Early Sunday Morning, 1930. Oil on canvas, 35 3/16 × 60 1/4 in. (89.4 × 153 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase with funds from Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney 31.426. © Heirs of Josephine N. Hopper/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY
Edward Hopper (1882–1967), Seven A.M., 1948. Oil on canvas, 30 3/16 × 40 1/8 in. (76.7 × 101.9 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase and exchange 50.8. © Heirs of Josephine N. Hopper/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY
Edward Hopper (1882–1967), South Carolina Morning, 1955. Oil on canvas, 30 9/16 × 40 1/4 in. (77.6 × 102.2 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; given in memory of Otto L. Spaeth by his Family 67.13 © Heirs of Josephine N. Hopper/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY
Edward Hopper, New York Interior, c. 1921. Oil on canvas, Overall: 24 1/4 × 29 1/4 in. (61.6 × 74.3cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Josephine N. Hopper Bequest 70.1200. © Heirs of Josephine N. Hopper/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY
Edward Hopper, A Woman in the Sun, 1961. Oil on linen, overall: 40 1/8 × 60 3/16 in. (101.9 × 152.9 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; 50th Anniversary Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Albert Hackett in honor of Edith and Lloyd Goodrich 84.31 © Heirs of Josephine N. Hopper/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY
Gregory Crewdson, Untitled (north by northwest), 2004, from Beneath the Roses, 2003-2005. Digital chromogenic print, 56 × 87 in. (142.2 × 221 cm). Edition no. 3/6. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase with funds from the Photography Committee 2005.169
Alexander Calder (1898-1976), Varèse, c. 1930. Wire, 15 × 11 3/4 × 12 1/2 in. (38.1 × 29.8 × 31.8 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; 50th Anniversary Gift of Mrs. Louise Varèse in honor of Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney 80.25 © Calder Foundation, New York / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Alexander Calder, Calder’s Circus, 1926–31. Wire, wood, metal, cloth, yarn, paper, cardboard, leather, string, rubber tubing, corks, buttons, rhinestones, pipe cleaners, and bottle caps, 54 × 94 1/4 × 94 1/4 in. (137.2 × 239.4 × 239.4 cm) overall, dimensions variable. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase with funds from a public fundraising campaign in May 1982. One half the funds were contributed by the Robert Wood Johnson Jr. Charitable Trust. Additional major donations were given by The Lauder Foundation, the Robert Lehman Foundation Inc., the Howard and Jean Lipman Foundation Inc., an anonymous donor, The T. M. Evans Foundation Inc., MacAndrews & Forbes Group Incorporated, the DeWitt Wallace Fund Inc., Martin and Agneta Gruss, Anne Phillips, Mr. and Mrs. Laurance S. Rockefeller, the Simon Foundation Inc., Marylou Whitney, Bankers Trust Company, Mr. and Mrs. Kenneth N. Dayton, Joel and Anne Ehrenkranz, Irvin and Kenneth Feld, Flora Whitney Miller. More than 500 individuals from 26 states and abroad also contributed to the campaign 83.36.1-95
© 2009 Calder Foundation, New York / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; photograph © Whitney Museum of American Art.
Alexander Calder, Object with Red Discs, 1931. Painted steel rod, wire, wood, and sheet aluminum, 88 1/2 × 33 × 47 1/2 in. (224.8 × 83.8 × 120.7 cm) overall. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase with funds from the Mrs. Percy Uris Purchase Fund 86.49a-c

Alexander Calder
186 works in the collection
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Installation photography

Alexander Calder, Fish, 1944. Metal, wire, glass, mirrors, beads and strings, 16 × 39 5/8 × 2 1/2 in. (40.6 × 100.6 × 6.4 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Bequest of Richard S. Zeisler 2007.82. Photograph by Sheldan Collins. © Calder Foundation, New York / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Alexander Calder, The Brass Family, 1929. Brass wire and painted wood, 67 × 41 1/8 × 8 7/8 in. (170.2 × 104.5 × 22.5 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; gift of the artist 69.255. Photograph by Sheldan Collins. © Calder Foundation, New York / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Alexander Calder, Constellation, 1943. Painted steel rods and wood, 30 × 27 1/2 × 8 1/8 in. (76.2 × 69.9 × 20.6 cm). The Lipman Family Foundation, Inc. Photograph by Sheldan Collins. © Calder Foundation, New York / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York