Alexander Calder (1898-1976)
Lot 531

Alexander Calder (1898-1976)

American Airlines #2

Closed14 May 2015

Price Realised

USD 725,000

More Information

How to sell

Alexander Calder (1898-1976)
American Airlines #2
signed with artist's monogram and dated 'AC 67' (on the largest disc)
hanging mobile—painted sheet metal and wire
2 x 16 x 8 in. (5 x 40.6 x 20.3 cm.)
Executed in 1967.

Perls Galleries, New York
Private collection, 1967
Hester Diamond, New York, circa 1980
Private collection, New York, circa 1980
Anon. sale; Christie's New York, 12 May 2011, lot 109
Acquired at the above sale by the present owner

Specialist note

'When everything goes right a mobile is a piece of poetry that dances with the joy of life and surprises'
(A. Calder, Calder, London, 2004, p. 261)

“These mobiles, which are neither entirely alive nor wholly mechanical, constantly disconcerting but always returning to their original position, are like aquatic plants swaying in a stream; they are like the petals of the Mimosa pudica, the legs of a decerebrate frog or gossamer threads caught in an updraft.” (J. Sartre, "Les Mobiles des Calder," from Alexander Calder: Mobiles, Stabiles, Constellations, exh. cat. (Paris: Galerie Louis Carré, 1946), 9–19)