The son and grandson of sculptors, Alexander Calder drew from his engineering and illustration backgrounds to create whimsical wire sculptures and mobiles. After coming into contact with the work of Piet Mondrian, however, Calder became an abstract artist. The simplification of forms was a natural fit for Calder’s fundamental interest in constellations, the cosmos, and movement. “The underlying sense of form in my work has been the system of the universe, or part thereof,” the artist once said, and this gouache follows suit. Horizontal black ellipses decrease in size as they float upwards towards the edge of the paper, suggesting an infinite path that continues above and beyond the frame.
Details
- Artist Name: Alexander Calder (American, 1898-1976)
- Title: Black Saucers
- Date: 1968
- Medium: Gouache on paper
- Dimensions: 43-1/4 x 29-1/2 in. (109.9 x 74.9 cm)
- Credit Line: Norton Simon Museum, Gift of Norton Simon Inc.
- Accession Number: P.1984.1.1
Object Information
Norton Simon Inc., New York, gift 1984 to;
Norton Simon Museum.
Calder Gouaches
- Long Beach, Long Beach Museum of Art, 1970-01-11 to 1970-02-08
- San Diego, Fine Arts Gallery, 1970-02-27 to 1970-03-29
- Phoenix, Phoenix Art Museum, 1970-05-01 to 1970-05-31
[on loan]
- Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1970-06-16 to
The Universe: Creation, Constellations and the Cosmos
- Norton Simon Museum, 2001-02-04 to 2001-06-04
- Calder Gouaches; The Art of Alexander Calder,
- Campbell, Sara, Collector Without Walls: Norton Simon and His Hunt for the Best, 2010, cat. 618 p. 319
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