Floor 5: Alexander Calder (exiting Olafur Eliasson Tunnel)
Overview
Gallery Wayfinding
You are in the Alexander Calder Gallery. The walls are white and the ceilings are high, so overall the gallery is brightly lit and spacious.
You've entered from the middle of the back wall of the square gallery. In this gallery, there are 17 sculptures, many suspended from the ceiling. Some are positioned along the edges of the gallery, and there is one massive hanging sculpture in the center of the space, along with its accompanying touch object.
There are two round seating areas in the center of the gallery.
The exit to the 5th Floor Landing is in the front left corner of the gallery. From that exit, with your back to the Calder Gallery, the entrance to the Ellsworth Kelly West Gallery is in the middle of the wall on your right. The QR code is at the threshold on the right wall, marked with a perpendicular tactile floor strip.
Label
"How can art be realized?
Out of volumes, motion, spaces bounded by the great space, the universe . . .
Spaces, volumes . . . juxtaposed, pierced by vectors, crossed by speeds.
Nothing at all of this is fixed.
Each element able to move, to stir, to oscillate, to come and go in its relationships with the other elements in its universe."
—Alexander Calder, 1932
"Sculpture has become . . . an aerial act," wrote an enthusiastic critic in 1929 about the work of Alexander Calder (born 1898, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; died 1976, New York). Although this observation was prompted by Calder's early, figurative wire sculptures, it could just as well describe the hanging "mobiles" the artist began creating in the early 1930s. In these extraordinary constructions, carefully counterbalanced elements move with passing air currents. Sculpture had traditionally meant solid, unmoving forms, but through these and other works, Calder transformed the medium into an art of lightness, space, motion, and time.
The works on view in this gallery span from the late 1920s, when Calder was a young artist in Paris, to 1976, the year of his death, and include a variety of mobiles alongside other standing and wall-mounted works that testify to his restless invention.
Calder's work combines a lasting interest in the physical forms of the natural world with a talent for experimentation. Using mostly simple tools (shears and pliers) and modest materials (wire, painted sheet metal, paint, wood), Calder produced dynamic and energetic compositions of color, shape, movement, and sometimes even sound.
Related Media
Artwork Label Text
Alexander Calder in the studio with his son.
Excerpt from Works of Calder (1950).
Produced by New World Film Productions for the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Directed and cinematography by Herbert Matter; produced and narrated by Burgess Meredith; music by John Cage.
Digitized 16mm color film, with sound, 3:18 min.
Transcript
Narrator:
Today, this boy went to the beach. It was a sunny, windy day, and he was alone; he wandered about and investigated, and the wind made everything move.
He found some jellyfish, and under the water they were moving, too. So was the water, and the milkweed, and the sun.
Then he walked and came to a place with big glass windows. There was a lot of noise going on inside. When he looked in, he saw a house full of things that moved.
There was a man in there, very busy. He was making the noise—hammering and banging, and scraping and bending things into shape.
The boy asked the man why he was doing that. The man said he enjoyed doing so. He explained that the things he made were called “mobiles” because they move by themselves.
“The mobiles were made out of everything,” he said: tin, wood, steel, and wire. He made them by himself. He worked hard, as though in a factory, but the things came out different.
Sometimes they moved all around him, and he enjoyed that. It was like having his own private sky.
The boy watched them so long he got rather dreamy. And the things he saw in the house, and the things he had seen outside, got mixed up together in his head. The man said that was what they were supposed to do.
He said everybody saw something different, after all, depending on the way they looked at the mobiles. Only the mobiles were exactly what they were and nothing else. He hammered and bent, and cut them and fixed them, so that they would move.
Label
Alexander Calder grew up in a family of artists who let him make art his own way. They even built him his own art studio! He made his first sculptures when he was 11 years old: a tiny metal duck and dog that he gave to his parents for Christmas. For the rest of his life, Calder created art about animals, nature, the circus, and many more subjects. Many of his best-known sculptures are mobiles that spin, float, and balance in the air... Almost like they are alive!
Objects
17 objects in the order you'll encounter them from this entrance. Select an object to view details.
Artwork Label Text
1951
Painted steel wire and rod, glass, plastic, wood, and string
The Doris and Donald Fisher Collection
Acquired by the Fisher family, 1995
The shimmering reflections and vibrant shadows cast by the glass in this mobile demonstrate Calder’s ability to achieve unexpected results from humble materials. This is one of a dozen hanging fish mobiles the artist made during and after World War II using colored glass and other found items. Although Calder generally made abstract work after 1930, he occasionally created works like this that more directly refer to a figure. Fish were a favorite subject, going back to his wire sculptures of 1929 (for instance see Aquarium, opposite).
Family Label
Fish on the Move
Put on your goggles and dive under the water—look, a fish! Its scales sparkle as it swims around. Calder created Fish using wire and lots of colorful glass, plastic, and wood. What other shiny or sparkly objects could you make fish scales out of?
Visual Description
A hanging mobile made of painted steel wire, colored glass pieces, and string is suspended from the ceiling high overhead in the shape of a long, horizontal fish. At nearly two feet tall and almost six feet wide, it is about the length of the average adult’s outstretched arms. The fish's outline is formed by several interconnected thick metal wires painted a deep blue. In the central oval portion—the fish’s body—a network of thinner blue wires forms an irregular pattern of curved cells—the fish's "scales." Suspended from strings inside the scales are small, translucent fragments of colored glass, including cobalt and sky blues, amber-orange, pale green, and clear pieces; some fragments are triangular, others curved or shard-like.
The oval body tapers at its back end to a point, from which the "tail" of the fish is suspended, allowing it to move independently. The tail consists of an open triangle of blue wire strung with multiple straight, radiating string lines that converge toward the fish's body, creating a fan of taut threads. At the other end of the oval body, a thick blue rod defining the fish’s pointed, angular head is joined at two points. It zigzags in to create an open mouth and loops around to describe an eye. Inside this eye hangs a symmetrical curlicue form in shiny metal, resembling two facing S-forms joined at the top that each spiral in closed scrolls at their bottoms.
The sculpture hangs about six feet away from the white gallery wall, and as the fish slowly revolves in response to passing air currents in the gallery, it projects a continuously changing shadow on the wall. At certain times, the shadow includes areas of color cast by light passing through the colored glass.
Artwork Label Text
1957
Metal and paint
The Doris and Donald Fisher Collection at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Acquired by the Fisher family, 1982
Double Mushroom doesn't actually move, yet it suggests movement with its bold, curving forms. Calder called such works "stabiles," meaning stationary counterparts to his mobiles. In the late 1930s, he began creating large-scale stabiles using plates of sheet metal bolted together, often painted a uniform, matte black to absorb light and amply their form for the viewer. In his later decades, the stabiles grew even larger, as cities commissioned them as public artworks. Double Mushroom is comparatively modest in size, but at over eight feet tall, it still has a commanding presence.
Visual Description
A large, freestanding, stationary, metal-and-paint sculpture about eight feet tall and four feet wide—a few feet taller than an average adult, but narrower than their outstretched arms—built from three matte black steel planes that intersect and interlock.
One of the planes rises as a tall, tapering, triangular shape, its surface subtly faceted and reinforced by a long, narrow vertical rib running up the center. At the very top, one thin, circular disc is mounted perpendicular to the spire and tilts downward on a slight slant. About one foot below that disc, a larger, flat disc sits perpendicular to the narrow top of the plane. The tapering plane seems to emerge from the center of the disc, almost as if it has pushed through the center of the disc and kept rising up.
At the midsection, the three planes intersect through several smaller, smoothly curved blades that protrude from each plane and intersect through slotted joints. There are small holes visible in each of these curved blades.
Another panel that rises up is shaped like a tall crescent, its tallest part almost matching the height of the lower disc that protrudes from on the tallest plane, all while bending away from it. This crescent plane also contains a narrow, vertical rib running up its center and protruding slightly from the plane.
The third panel is shaped like a blade with a very narrow, rounded edge that touches the floor. It widens as it connects to the other planes at the midsection, and after this connection, the wider blade bends outward, like its top is folding away from the center of the sculpture. The top of this plane narrows to a point, and it reaches about halfway the height of the tallest plane that contains the protruding discs. This plane has three visible fasteners and small circular holes near the midsection.
The entire sculpture stands on three narrow points, one at the end of each panel.
Artwork Label Text
1953
Metal and paint
The Doris and Donald Fisher Collection at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Acquired by the Fisher family, 2000
Double Gong consists of seventeen interconnected elements, including two brass plates, or "gongs," that are struck by red mallets at random intervals. Calder had long disputed the idea that visual art should be silent and unmoving, as seen by his boisterous performance pieces of Cirque Calder (1926-31), his miniature handmade circus. Here, the sound is relatively peaceful. Commissioned for the seaside home of a notable Venezuelan art critic, Double Gong was designed to move gracefully and make music in the ocean breeze.
Family Label
Whoosh! Ping, ping!
This is what you might hear if a gust of wind blew through this gallery. Calder created many artworks that make sounds when they move. Imagine Double Gong turning, its red mallets bumping against its brass gongs.
Visual Description
A large mobile, about the height of a short adult but spanning twice that length horizontally,****hangs from the ceiling high overhead. It consists of seventeen colorful, flat, irregular metal shapes suspended by a cascading series of thin red horizontal metal rods (or "arms") and hook-and-loop connections. These include thirteen flat sheet metal elements cut to different shapes and painted different colors (red, black, yellow, and blue); two shaped brass plates; and two small, metal, knob-like forms on thin rods. The colored metal plates and the brass plates hang roughly perpendicular to the floor. The entire mobile hangs asymmetrically (the attachment to the ceiling is far off-center) but is carefully balanced and forms a gentle descending arc when the elements are aligned. The various sections rotate from their pivot points, independently or in tandem, in response to passing air currents in the gallery, resulting in a constantly changing abstract composition.
Suspended from one end of the topmost horizontal rod is a round brass plate which hangs from a looped wire that pierces near its center. From the other end of this rod hangs another curved metal rod with a small knob at one end. The next two levels of the mobile feature another brass plate (crescent-shaped) and, beneath that, another thin rod with a knob at one end. As these levels of the mobile rotate, the two rods with knobs on the end may occasionally—unpredictably—come into contact with the two brass plates, producing a light metallic pinging sound.
Below these top levels of the mobile are a series of sheet metal elements cut in different shapes and painted various colors. These include, higher up, a large, orange-red form with a smooth, teardrop silhouette; a deep cobalt-blue rounded triangle with an oval cutout; and a bright yellow rounded triangle also punctured by an oval opening. Farther down the rod, smaller plates in red, black, and yellow cluster in diminishing sizes.
Artwork Label Text
1976
Metal and paint
The Doris and Donald Fisher Collection at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Acquired by the Fisher family, 2002
The shapes in this small mobile—made only months before Calder’s death at age seventy-eight—recall one of the original touchpoints for his art. In 1922, while sailing off the coast of Guatemala, Calder’s experience of simultaneously seeing the rising sun to the east and the setting moon to the west left him with "a lasting sensation of the solar system." Here, atypically, the artist represents actual celestial bodies, including an anthropomorphic sun. In general, Calder found inspiration for his abstract mobiles not in nature’s observable forms but in its magnitudes and unseen energies.
Visual Description
A small hanging mobile, suspended from the ceiling, is about two feet in height and spans approximately three feet across. It is composed of nine cut sheet metal elements painted white, red, black, and yellow; these hang from reddish-brown wire arms that branch from a central suspension point. From one of the outer arms****hangs the largest element: a round, flat, yellow face with small protruding ears, narrow-slitted eyes, a prominent curled nose shape, and a thin, slightly upturned mouth, all cut out as openings and raised planes that create shadowed facial features.
A secondary wire branch****supports a pale, off-white crescent moon with a pointed tip and a small circular cut near its upper area. Dangling from one end of the crescent moon, and hanging slightly beneath it, is an off-white, five-pointed star with lightly incised interior lines. Two short vertical strands hang from another branching arm**,** each carrying small, irregular geometric plates in alternating colors—bright red and deep black—attached with tiny metal fasteners so they can pivot. The various sections rotate from their pivot points, independently or in tandem, in response to passing air currents in the space.
Artwork Label Text
1969
Metal and paint
The Doris and Donald Fisher Collection
Acquired by the Fisher family, 1993
Family Label
This one is a-peel-ing!
It may be called Big Fat Banana—but don’t try to take a bite! Calder loved giving his metal sculptures fun names to spark our imagination. Take a closer look at the yellow shape. Do you think this looks like a banana, or another food?
Visual Description
A painted metal sculpture about two feet tall—reaching just past the knee on the average adult—consists of a red- and yellow-colored mobile anchored to the top of a mostly black vertical base. The mobile portion spans four feet, which is almost the width of an average adult's outstretched arms.
The base has an elongated triangular body that rests on three legs. Two of the legs are identically sized and fold out in opposite directions from the central plane to create an upside-down "V"; they are planar, with straight edges that slightly widen as they extend up from their flat ends on the gallery pedestal. The larger third leg is set roughly perpendicular to the other legs and begins at its top as an angled extension of the main plane of the base before zigzagging down in a series of sharp, triangular folds that are painted white on one side.
At its top, the base narrows to a sharp point that serves as the fulcrum—or a fixed support point—for a small, dimpled red plate, roughly rectangular in shape. A bent red wire runs through holes in this plate and extends out horizontally: in one direction, it connects to a large yellow curved plate, shaped like a rounded crescent. The part of the wire looped through this yellow plate is painted yellow. On the opposite side, the red wire ends in a hook from which hangs a descending series of shorter red wires connected by tiny hooks and loops. Each of the first three wires supports a red, paddle-like plate at one of its ends; the lowest wire connects to two of these forms. Altogether, five of these red forms, each slightly different in shape and size, hang in a staggered sequence, counterbalancing the large yellow crescent on the opposite side. While the black base remains motionless, the various sections of the mobile rotate, independently or in tandem, in response to passing air currents in the space.
Artwork Label Text
1951
Metal, wood, thread, and paint with oil on canvas mounted on wood
The Doris and Donald Fisher Collection at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Acquired by the Fisher family, 1994
This object is one of a group of four works that Calder called "towers." Each work consists of an open wire structure, in most cases projecting from the wall, that supports a variety of elements. Closely related to his earlier wall-mounted “constellations” nearby, the towers showcase the artist’s ability to build physical structures from lines of wire. This tower almost acts as a retrospective of Calder’s life’s work, from the small abstract painting referred to in the title, to examples of wood carving, to a delicate hanging mobile that moves easily on air currents.
Visual Description
A large metal and wood structure projects outward from the wall about five feet, or nearly the length of the average adult's outstretched arms, and contains a smaller hanging mobile at its far end.
The structure attached to the wall is built from slender black and reddish-brown rods connected by fine wires and angular, kite-like geometries, with small hanging elements distributed along its length. It hangs from two points at the top, and a rod at the bottom rests against the wall. Close to the wall, a small, rectangular, painted panel hangs from the structure, marked with scattered dots in muted red, green, and blue on a light ground. Below and slightly right of that panel, two elongated and carved wooden forms in warm brown tones dangle vertically, one longer and more tapered than the other; nearer the center, a darker brown, gourd-like piece hangs with a bulbous silhouette. Higher up along the diagonal framework, a small, curved, brown element appears suspended near a cluster of intersecting rods, where a few segments shift to yellow and orange.
On the other side of the structure, several short black arms project outward and support a smaller arrangement of thin dangling threads that hold flat, circular discs, rendering this portion of the sculpture a hanging mobile. A larger, deep-blue circle and a mustard-yellow circle hang closer to the center, while farther away a row of smaller red discs marches outward in an arc, balanced by a few small dark (black or charcoal) oval and circular counterweights above. As this hanging mobile section responds to air currents, its elements revolve and move, altering the composition.
Artwork Label Text
1949
Metal, paint, and string
The Doris and Donald Fisher Collection at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Acquired by the Fisher family, 2008
Visual Description
A suspended sculptural wind mobile, roughly the height of a short adult and spreading out farther than their outstretched arms, balances a long, thin black metal arm with two separate clusters: one contains dangling black abstract forms on black wires, and the other is a branching cluster of red wire elements and colorful discs.
From the top center, a vertical hanging wire drops to a curved, slightly arched horizontal rod that spans most of the composition, with one part higher and stepping down and across through smaller linked wire arcs. Along this higher part of the mobile, several matte-black cutouts hang in a row; some contain clean oval holes, and their sizes diminish toward the far end, where a tiny black piece ends the sequence. Above these shapes, a small, black, three-pointed form sits on a short vertical stem, and farther along the linked wire arcs, a black circular disc stands upright on another thin stem.
On the lower part of the mobile, a separate thin spray of thin red rods and wires descends and branches outward, each branch tipped with flat, circular counterweight discs in bright colors including red, yellow, and orange. There are also several black discs of varying sizes. Near the bottom, the red structure terminates in small horizontal segments and tiny hanging elements, including a low, blue, crescent-shaped piece and a small, pale-yellow disc. As the mobile responds to air currents, its elements revolve and move, altering the composition.
Artwork Label Text
ca. 1940
Metal and paint
The Doris and Donald Fisher Collection at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Acquired by the Fisher family, 1999
Visual Description
Standing higher than a tall adult, though half the width of their outstretched arms, this work is organized around a painted black metal rod that curves in a sinuous S-shaped form, creating an elegant, calligraphic silhouette. At the central curve of the "S", the rod balances delicately on the surface of a small, white, table-like platform. At its bottom end, the rod is joined to a crescent-shaped metal sheet. This bowl-like form hovers several inches from the floor.
From the point where it rests on the table, the rod sweeps upward in a large arc, looping leftward and then back toward the center. At its top end, a mobile element is suspended: a series of thin black wires arc upward and outward from either side of central vertical wire spine. The ends of these wires are capped by eight small matte-black sheet metal elements cut in various shapes, including teardrop- or leaf-like forms. The lowest element of the mobile is a crescent form that hangs from a wire suspended from the central spine. The mobile elements are free to gently move in response to air currents in the gallery.
Artwork Label Text
1943
Wood, wire, and paint
The Doris and Donald Fisher Collection at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Acquired by the Fisher family, 1999
Bright organic forms on long wires seem to burst off the red block on the wall and into space. This work is part of a series of painted wood and wire "constellations"—so named by curator James Johnson Sweeney and artist Marcel Duchamp—that Calder began making during World War II, when sheet metal was scarce. The sculpture suggests energetic movement and dynamic pathways that extend beyond its physical boundaries.
Visual Description
Mounted high up on the gallery wall, a stationary sculpture—spanning roughly four feet high and across, or about the diameter of the average ceiling fan—consists of a series of small, discrete wooden elements that are connected to a central red wood orb by thin, rigid metal wires. The carved wood forms are painted different colors and have a variety of shapes. The largest of them, near the center of the composition, is a rounded red form with a smooth surface that sits mostly flush to the wall. This is the hub from which the other elements radiate out on wires in different directions and to different degrees of distance from the wall.
Two shapes project out from the front top of the red form on short wires: on the right, a bright yellow hourglass form that consists of two joined cones, and to its left and higher up, a black oblong block. To the left of this, one slightly arcing wire—the longest wire in the sculpture—sweeps up to the left: it ends in a dark, elongated form with a pointed, tusk-like top and a slightly wider rounded bottom. A separate short wire connects this form to—and pushes it out from—the wall. Below this, from the lower left of the red form, another wire angles down and to the left, terminating in a flat, oval blue disk; this, too, has a small, thin wire behind it that pushes it out from the wall. To the right of this, a shorter wire angled to the left ends in a copper-brown planar shape. Finally, to the far right, a short horizontal wire extends out from the red form to a large, brown, pointed oval-like form. From this, two smaller shapes of the same brown color project out on very short wires: one has a similar oval-like form, and the other tiny shape resembles a peanut.
Artwork Label Text
1943
Metal, wood, paint, and mechanical elements
The Doris and Donald Fisher Collection at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Acquired by the Fisher family, 1995
Notice how the mechanical components that drive the pendulums' movements are visible behind the wooden planks. This is a rare example of a motorized mobile from the 1940s; Calder mostly avoided controlled motion in favor of unpredictable movements generated by wind. He was first inspired to embrace abstraction while visiting modernist painter Piet Mondrian's studio in 1930. Struck by the colorful cardboard rectangles adorning a wall, Calder suggested making them oscillate. Mondrian objected, but Calder soon began working out in sculptural form.
Quattro Pendulati is activated Friday through Tuesday at 11:30 a.m.
Visual Description
This motorized mobile features a vertically oriented wood panel that is roughly the size of an average wall poster mounted on the gallery wall. It is made of several vertical wooden planks joined together; the unpainted wood has a raw and weathered surface with visible wood knots. This rectangular panel is the support and background, or "frame," for four pendulum-like forms. Each of the pendulums consists of a flat, circular, sheet-metal disc painted a different matte color and attached to a black rod. The rods hang from points near the top of the wood panel and extend down at different lengths; they hang parallel to the wood panel and slightly in front of it.
Near the upper left corner, a small blue disc hangs from a short rod. Near the upper right, a slightly larger red disc hangs from a slightly longer rod. At the upper center of the composition, two longer rods descend from vertically stacked points to support two discs: a large black circular disc, which hangs near the center of the panel, and white disc, whose diameter is smaller than that of the black disc but larger than that of the blue and red discs. The white disc hangs below the black disc and is projected further out, so that its rod passes in front of the black disc.
When the motor for the work is activated, the rods and disks swing slowly in different directions, resulting in a changing composition of colors and forms. The smaller blue and red discs swing roughly forty-five degrees in both directions, but their motions are not synchronized. The black disc swings roughly forty-five degrees to the left and then returns to its starting position perpendicular to the floor; the white disc swings roughly forty-five degrees to the right and then back again. When the discs are at the outer limit of their left or right oscillation, they extend slightly beyond the edge of the wood panel.
Artwork Label Text
1929
Wire and paint
The Doris and Donald Fisher Collection at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Acquired by the Fisher family, 1995
In works like this portrait of Hans Cürlis—a German filmmaker who documented Calder during the artist’s 1929 visit to Berlin—the artist shaped coils of metal wire into exaggerated likenesses of his subjects. The "three-dimensional line drawings," as he called them, have the fluid and spontaneous quality of pencil sketches but operate in space, where they become dynamic and shape-shift depending on the viewer's angle. With their delicate, spring-like forms, Calder's massless wire sculptures seem like they might move. Aquarium is one of two fishbowl-themed works from 1929 in which the artist first introduced actual movement to his works—in this case, activated by a lever.
Family Label
Wire We Swimming?
Peek inside Calder's fishbowl! He bent and twisted wire to make wavy water, floating fish, and a tiny snail crawling along the side. See the small lever on the bottom left of the bowl? When it's moved, the fish wiggles like it's swimming!
Visual Description
A small sculpture forms the outline of a large fishbowl in painted black wire. A thick continuous wire traces the broad oval body, narrowing into a short top shaped with an elliptical rim, with thin looping wires draped around it in the shape of tiny waves of water. Inside the large open, round space, fine wire elements create a grouping of shapes related to marine life: on the side of the sculpture, a small metal coil shaped like a snail is attached to the side of the fishbowl.
Toward the center of the fishbowl, a loose scribble of overlapping loops appears to be a flower with large petals. In the lower portion, another square coil of wires forms the shape of a small fish. Along the bottom, a separate oval ring provides a base or ground connected by multiple twisted ties and small kinks in the wire, as well as another small, tight wire coil. Near where the base and side of the fishbowl meet, there is a thicker wire assembly with short upright prongs and a tight coil. At the bottom of the flower-shape's stem, along the bottom of the fishbowl, a thin wire spells out the cursive word "Calder" in small, looping letters.
Artwork Label Text
1929
Wire
The Doris and Donald Fisher Collection at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Acquired by the Fisher family, 1998
Visual Description
A sculpture depicts the head of a man with what appears to be a single continuous line of metal wire that loops and twists back on itself. The sculpture's size is slightly smaller than the average human head. The face is a rounded oval, with a spiky halo of short zigzag shapes suggesting hair along the top. Two large round eyeglass frames sit across the center, with each lens containing a wavy line for an eyelid and a short straight coil for a pupil; the glasses meet at a twisted bridge. A nose drops down from between the lenses, bending into a small, looped tip.
Below the nose, a mouth is made from a slightly wavy horizontal line, while a larger curved arc near the bottom edge of the face suggests a chin or a smile; two vertical U-shaped lines inside the jaw hint at cheeks. Elongated loop shapes on both sides read as ears. A straight central wire descends from the chin to a tightly twisted vertical stem that connects to a flat, horizontal base line; the base includes a small spiral coil near the center and curled ends that function as stabilizers. On one side of the base, the wire is curled into the looping cursive letters to form the word "Calder".
Artwork Label Text
1929
Graphite on paper
The Doris and Donald Fisher Collection at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Acquired by the Fisher family, 1998
Visual Description
A graphite on paper drawing—its size slightly smaller than a standard piece of paper—depicts a front-facing portrait of a man that fills most of the sheet. The head is outlined with a few continuous lines: a rounded jaw and chin, ears on both sides, and a small neckline trailing down toward the lower right. Round eyeglass frames fill the upper half of the face, connected by a short bridge; behind them, the eyes are rendered as narrow, nearly-closed slits. Above the frames, short, spiky strokes suggest eyebrows or lashes, while the hair is indicated by several airy, looping curls. One cluster sits high on the forehead, and additional spirals collect near the upper left and upper right edges. The nose is reduced to a few curved marks, and the mouth is a soft, slightly upturned line; a few vertical and curved strokes on the lower face imply chin contours or light shading. In the bottom right corner, the drawing is signed in graphite with the cursive name "Calder."
Artwork Label Text
1953
Metal and paint
The Doris and Donald Fisher Collection at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Acquired by the Fisher family, 1998
Visual Description
Roughly as tall as a basketball hoop and spanning that same distance across, this large, hanging mobile consists of eighteen distinct elements in sheet metal that hang from a complex, branching series of metal wires.
All of the parts are painted a uniform matte black, resulting in crisp silhouettes. The elements have various organic, curved shapes that loosely resemble paddles or teardrops, and several of them have small holes cut through them. The three largest, uppermost shapes are suspended horizontally, roughly parallel to the ground, while the others—which diminish in size as they descend to the lower branches—hang vertically. The entire system is suspended by a single wire from the ceiling that connects to the topmost wire arm at an off-center point in the work. Here, the mobile starts at roughly six feet below the 16-foot ceiling, while the bottom hovers less than a foot over a protective gallery platform below it.
In response to passing air currents in the space, the various sections of the mobile slowly rotate from their pivot points, independently or in tandem, resulting in a constantly changing composition.
Artwork Label Text
1948
Aluminum, steel, and paint
The Doris and Donald Fisher Collection at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Acquired by the Fisher family, 2007
In this standing mobile, delicate pairs of white forms extend into space on a diminishing scale, giving the sense of progression over time. Suspended by thin wire supports that flutter with air movements, these organic shapes evoke natural forces. As Calder described, "You see nature and then you try to emulate it. . . . My whole theory about art is the disparity that exists between form, masses, and movement."
Visual Description
A stationary base supports a four-foot-tall mobile, which reaches just below chest-height on an average adult, with a horizontal span of roughly seven feet at its maximum extent—far wider than the adult's outstretched arms.
The top of the mobile is a long, slightly arcing horizontal wire. Large, flat pieces of sheet metal painted white are hanging from a small wire branch attached to the shorter end of the horizontal wire. These have irregular shapes that are partly curved and partly angular. Balancing these on the longer side of the top wire is a series of eleven smaller, flat sheet metal shapes that hang from a cascading series of wire branches. These elements are likewise painted white and hang in pairs that diminish in size as they extend out; the smallest, outermost shape hangs alone. Several have small rounded holes cut in them.
The mobile is held upright by a single, dark, upright metal rod, the top of which connects to the top horizontal wire. The bottom of the rod bends to form a "V" shape base on the gallery plinth on which the mobile rests. The various sections of the mobile rotate from their pivot points, independently or in tandem, in response to passing air currents in the space, resulting in a constantly changing composition.
Artwork Label Text
1945
Metal and paint
The Doris and Donald Fisher Collection at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Acquired by the Fisher family, 2001
Visual Description
Spanning the height of a short adult and stretching nearly twice that length across, this hanging mobile is a complex, interconnected arrangement of curved wire arms and twenty-three distinct shapes in sheet metal.
All of the parts are painted a uniform matte black. The entire assembly is hung high overhead so that it may be walked under and experienced from below as well as from various sides. It is suspended from a single vertical wire at the top center; from this, multiple thin metal wires branch outward in arcs, each arm balancing smaller sub-arms in a cascading hierarchy. The sheet metal elements are cut in abstract, organic shapes that loosely resemble leaves or petals of varying sizes, and hang roughly horizontally, or parallel to the floor.
In response to passing air currents in the space, the various sections of the mobile slowly rotate from their pivot points, independently or in tandem, resulting in a constantly changing composition.
Artwork Label Text
1962
Metal and paint
The Doris and Donald Fisher Collection at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Acquired by the Fisher family, 1989
Family Label
Something's Fishy about this one...
A blue wave-like shape sits above a yellow swoop. Is it a fish, or a wiggling, swaying fish-like shape? Catch a glimpse of a fin, or the ripples in the water. What parts remind you of a fish? What parts don’t?
Visual Description
A painted-metal and wire sculpture—about the height of a short adult and stretching the distance of their outstretched arms—is mounted high on the gallery wall. At its top, the work is attached to the wall by a red wire that curls in a small hook around a nail. The wire extends down and outward in a zigzagging S-curve and in turn supports—and disappears behind—a large, cobalt-blue-painted metal sheet that has a dynamic arc-like shape. The blue element ends in a tight spiral curl at the far left, widens at the center, and then tapers toward the right.
Overlapping the blue shape on its right side is a bright yellow curved form with aerodynamic contours. The yellow element widens on its left and splits into two fin-like points; on the right side, it tapers to a sharp point. Suspended from a hook at this point is the fourth and last component of the work: a delicate black wire structure hangs and branches downward in the form of a small mobile. This consists of nine matte-black pieces of sheet metal cut in the form of angular paddles, which are attached to a cascading series of black metal wires connected by hooks and loops. These elements, unlike the red, blue, and yellow forms above, are free to gently move in response to air currents in the gallery.