© Calder Foundation, New York / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Currently not on view
Maquette for "Whale",
ca. 1937
Alexander Calder, 1898–1976; born Lawnton, PA; died New York, NY; active Paris, France, and Roxbury, CT
y1979-16
This sculpture—a maquette for one of Calder’s earliest stabiles, or stationary sculptures—reveals the artist’s composition for a painted metal work over five and a half feet in height. The elegant curves and intersecting planes of the form balanced across a wooden log evoke a whale poised mid-leap, infusing the sculpture with a sense of motion despite its composition from sheets of steel. Calder is celebrated for his innovative use of formal elements more traditionally associated with drawing or painting—line, color, and flat, geometric shapes—as the building blocks of his sculptures. The title, Whale, heightens the narrative expression of the work and anchors this piece in the transformative moment when Calder’s work was in transition from figuration to, increasingly, geometric abstractions
Information
Title
Maquette for "Whale"
Dates
ca. 1937
Maker
Medium
Painted sheet steel and wood
Dimensions
80.5 x 64.6 x 58.5 cm (31 11/16 x 25 7/16 x 23 1/16 in.)
Credit Line
Gift of Mrs. Alfred H. Barr, Jr.
Object Number
y1979-16
Inscription
Artist's monogram engraved on largest support "fin" [See accession card for reproduction]
Culture
Type
Subject
- James J. Sweeney, Alexander Calder, (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1943)., p. 35
- "Acquisitions of the Art Museum 1979," Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University 39, no. 1/2 (1980): p. 40-63., p. 55
- Allen Rosenbaum and Francis F. Jones, Selections from The Art Museum, Princeton University, (Princeton, NJ: The Art Museum, Princeton University, 1986), p. 141 (illus.)
- Marla Prather, et. al., Alexander Calder 1898-1976, (Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art; New Haven, CT; London: Yale University Press, 1998)., p. 150 (illus.); cat. no. 97
