Alexander Calder (1898-1976). The Black Dress, 1959. Sheet metal, brass, wire and paint. 16 x 12 x 2-3/4 inches (40.6 x ...

Description

Alexander Calder (1898-1976)
The Black Dress, 1959
Sheet metal, brass, wire and paint
16 x 12 x 2-3/4 inches (40.6 x 30.5 x 7.0 cm)
Signed on the base: CA

PROVENANCE:
Perls Galleries, New York;
Grosvenor Gallery, London, acquired from the above;
Private collection, Dallas, acquired from the above, 1963;
Private collection, Dallas, by descent from the above;
Private collection, Dallas, 2024.

NOTE:
Please note that this work may be viewed in our Park Ave., New York office on 5/6/25 and 5/7/25 by appointment only.

The work is registered in the archives of the Calder Foundation under A07832.

Alexander Calder is a known pioneer of both the mobile and stabile in kinetic art. Calder carefully curated bits of metal and wire in varying sizes to create abstract forms that relied on balance, weight, and air currents that worked together to create the overall image or understanding of his work. Calder's development of the stabile as a stationary abstract sculpture was first seen in 1937 with his work Devil Fish, a large bolted stabile fashioned from sheet metal and was an enlargement of a smaller version of the work. Calder's stabiles typically consist of flat, curvilinear metal shapes welded or riveted together, and painted red or black, with which he associates brightness and depth. Calder's stabiles became an innovative approach to form and structure, with the ability to suggest motion even when static, and with their eventual contribution to public art on a monumental scale.

In The Black Dress (1959) Alexander Calder has created a small-scale stabile using the sharp abstracted shape of a deep black dress on a red base that peaks to a sharp point of immediate focus. A brass pendulum balances on a fixed point, a spiral at one end and delicately cut staggered circles, forming an abstracted falling star, on the other. While fixed at one point the delicate moving parts of the stabile interact with the environment around them as they gently catch the air currents rocking slightly giving this star a falling star motion.


More information about Alexander Calder. See also: Calder, Alexander Artist.



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