Environment and Evolution by Alexander Calder
This is a spectacular lithograph titled "Environment and Evolution" by iconic American artist Alexander Calder. It is a very well documented piece that was created and issued in 1973. It features Calder's signature style with bold colors and geometric forms. An upside down fish and a snake are in orbit around a red sun-like circular object with projecting rays. It was issued in a US edition of 125 in Arabic numerals with a pencil signature lower right. There was a European edition of 125 as well, but these were numbered in Roman numerals. There were also 30 artist's proofs issued. This one has both the pencil signature and the edition 91/125 lower left so is from the US edition. I haven't found any evidence of reproductions of this particular piece online. The provenance is from the Merritt Chase Gallery but I've not found any information about the gallery at this time. Certificates of Authenticity are only as good as the company that stands behind it. Patrician Galleries is no longer in business and I haven't been able to find out if anyone is holding there sales records. In general, it appears they had a good reputation, but there are a few comments indicating that they might have dealt in some reproductions. In trying to decide if something is authentic, the size of the original is an important piece of information. Fortunately, this piece, while framed, had the print mounted so that the sheet could be measured. It is 38.25 x 26.5 inches which corresponds to the original size. While not a guarantee, it is further evidence that it is an authentic piece. It is in pristine condition with no fading, toning, stains, foxing, paper loss, tears or other problems. The framing materials are archival. The frame is very large and heavy (47.75 x 36 inches). We don't issue certificates of authenticity, but we have a full return/refund policy. If for any reason you are not satisfied, return the piece to us (shipping and insurance is your responsibility) and we'll refund the full purchase price (excluding any tax, fees, and original shipping). We stand behind what we sell.
Alexander Calder was born in 1898, the second child of artist parents-- his father was a sculptor and his mother a painter. Calder was encouraged to create, and from the age of eight he always had his own workshop wherever the family lived. For Christmas in 1909, Calder presented his parents with two of his first sculptures, a tiny dog and duck cut from a brass sheet and bent into formation. The duck is kinetic-- it rocks back and forth when tapped. Despite his talents, Calder did not originally set out to become an artist. He instead enrolled at the Stevens Institute of Technology after high school and graduated in 1919 with an engineering degree. Calder committed to becoming an artist shortly thereafter, and in 1923 he moved to New York and enrolled at the Art Students' League. He also took a job illustrating for the National Police Gazette, which sent him to the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus to sketch circus scenes for two weeks in 1925. The circus became a lifelong interest of Calder's, and after moving to Paris in 1926, he created his Cirque Calder, a complex and unique body of art. The assemblage included diminutive performers, animals, and props he had observed at the Ringling Brothers Circus. Fashioned from wire, leather, cloth, and other found materials, Cirque Calder was designed to be manipulated manually by Calder. Every piece was small enough to be packed into a large trunk, enabling the artist to carry it with him and hold performances anywhere. Its first performance was held in Paris for an audience of friends and peers, and soon Calder was presenting the circus in both Paris and New York to much success. Calder's renderings of his circus often lasted about two hours and were quite elaborate. Indeed, the Cirque Calder predated performance art by forty years.
Calder found he enjoyed working with wire for his circus: he soon began to sculpt from this material portraits of his friends and public figures of the day. Word traveled about the inventive artist, and in 1928 Calder was given his first solo gallery show at the Weyhe Gallery in New York. He also became friendly with many prominent artists and intellectuals of the early twentieth century at this time, including Joan Miró, Fernand Léger, James Johnson Sweeney, and Marcel Duchamp. In October 1930 Calder visited the studio of Piet Mondrian in Paris and was deeply impressed by a wall of colored, paper rectangles that Mondrian continually repositioned for compositional experiments. Soon after, he was invited to join Abstraction-Création, an influential group of artists (including Arp, Mondrian, and Hélion) with whom he had become friendly.
As the range and breadth of his various projects and commissions indicate, Calder's artistic talents were renowned worldwide by the 1960s. A retrospective of his work opened at the Guggenheim Museum in New York in 1964. Five years later the Fondation Maeght, in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, France, held its own Calder retrospective. In 1966, Calder, together with his son-in-law Jean Davidson, published a well-received autobiography. Additionally, both of Calder's dealers, Galerie Maeght in Paris and the Perls Gallery in New York averaged about one Calder show each per year.
In 1976, he attended the opening of yet another retrospective of his work, Calder's Universe, at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. Just a few weeks later, Calder died at the age of seventy-eight, ending the most prolific and innovative artistic career of the twentieth century.
Price: $4675
Size: 38.25 x 26.5 inches
Framed Size: 47.75 x 36 inches
Plate Size: 38.25 x 26.5 inches
Condition: Pristine
Medium: Lithograph
Subject: Abstract
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