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Calder Foundation

The Calder Foundation works to preserve the integrity of the artist Alexander Calder’s life and work through exhibitions, publications, archives, and research.
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06/23/2026

On this day in 1974, Calder was named Citoyen d’Honneur de la Commune by the Mayor of Saché, France. Calder’s home and studio in the Indre-et-Loire—where he primarily lived in the last decades of his life—is now host to Atelier Calder, the oldest residency program of its kind in France. International artists are invited to live and work on the property for three months, receiving a living stipend as well as technical and financial support to realize artistic projects that might otherwise prove daunting.

For more information: https://tinyurl.com/8643ts2w

[Image: Calder and Dina Vierny with Feuille d’arbre (1974), Saché, 1974. © 2026 Calder Foundation, New York / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York]

06/22/2026

In many of Calder’s mobiles—such as this work from 1948, which is currently on view at Calder Gardens—there are distinct sections of metal elements that behave independently. As air currents set them each in motion, these groupings may move in varying directions and at different speeds. John Yau writes, “Constantly shifting, Calder’s mobiles are physical examples of time’s unpredictability and endless change.” The sculpture’s choreography evolves from one moment to the next.

For more information: https://tinyurl.com/ymtry3s5

[Video: Untitled (1948), Calder Gardens, 2025. © 2026 Calder Foundation, New York / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York]

06/18/2026

If you’re attending Art Basel this week, be sure to visit Calder’s seventeen-foot-high standing mobile The Tree, newly reinstalled in the sculpture garden at the Fondation Beyeler in Riehen. Several of Calder’s monumental standing mobiles—such as The Spinner at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, and Carmen at the Museo Reina Sofía, Madrid—are composed of a base with a long, horizontal bar balanced on top and mobile elements descending from either end. Calder wrote of his outdoor standing mobiles in 1937, “All of them react to the wind, and are like a sailing vessel in that they react best to one kind of breeze.”

For more information: https://tinyurl.com/3cc298zv

[Image: The Tree (1966), Fondation Beyeler, Riehen, 2026. © 2026 Calder Foundation, New York / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York]

06/16/2026

Calder’s monumental standing mobile Three Quintains has been reinstalled in front of the new David Geffen Galleries at the LACMA Los Angeles County Museum of Art, part of Peter Zumthor's transformation of the museum’s campus. In 1964, Calder was commissioned to create a fountain for the William Pereira-designed museum. The final work—which was installed when the museum opened to the public on 31 March 1965—comprises three standing mobiles that function as the centerpiece of a fountain.

For more information: https://tinyurl.com/3j63zx6t

[Image: Three Quintains (1964), Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2026. Photograph by Fredrik Nilsen. © 2026 Calder Foundation, New York / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; © Fredrik Nilsen Studio]

06/15/2026

The vivid 1944 oil painting Fetishes is currently on view at Calder Gardens. Though he is most well-known as a sculptor, Calder was a prodigious painter. His first abstract works of art were a series of oil paintings from 1930, and he returned to this medium throughout his career, consistently transforming canvases with bold forms and dramatic juxtapositions that also appear in his sculpture.

For more information: https://tinyurl.com/3xjypsxk

[Image: Fetishes (1944), Calder Gardens, 2026. © 2026 Calder Foundation, New York / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York]

06/11/2026

This afternoon's match between Mexico and South Africa at the historic Estadio Azteca in Mexico City marks the beginning of the FIFA World Cup. As fans arrive for the match, they will be greeted by El Sol Rojo, Calder’s tallest stabile. He made the nearly 85-foot-high work for the stadium when it was built for the 1968 Olympics in Mexico. In 1969, Calder designed a cover for Art in America that depicts the colossal sculpture against a bold, yellow background. ”As one thinks of it now, the word which comes to mind most often is magnificent,” Robert Osborn writes in the accompanying article about the artist’s public sculpture. ”Calder will probably finally get to the stars, single-handed, propelled there no doubt by some circus rig of his own, flinging him end over end into space—his natural possessed element.”

For more information: https://tinyurl.com/23aparun

[Image: Cover of Art in America, vol. 57, no. 2 (March–April 1969). © 2026 Calder Foundation, New York / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York]

06/09/2026

In Calder. Rêver en équilibre, Fondation Louis Vuitton has brought several of Calder’s large-scale outdoor sculptures into their galleries. The standing mobile Southern Cross and the stabile Gui lend different impressions to viewers as they travel from verdant landscapes into Frank Gehry’s architecture. “This was precisely the type of experience that Calder wanted people to have with his work—one that’s in the present moment, constantly changing,” writes Alexander S. C. Rower.

For more information: https://tinyurl.com/32xf7eux

[Images: Installation images, Calder. Rêver en équilibre, Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris, 2026. Photographs by Marc Domage; Southern Cross (1963), Storm King Art Center, Mountainville, New York. Photograph by Jerry L. Thompson; Gui (1976), Roxbury, Connecticut. © 2026 Calder Foundation, New York / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; © Fondation Louis Vuitton / Marc Domage]

06/05/2026

In a 1944 letter to Calder, Brazilian architect Henrique Mindlin wrote, “Your mobiles are having a terrific success here … Marcelo Roberto, the architect whose I.R.B. building was published in the August issue of the Architectural Forum is crazy to have a small one.” This standing mobile is one of the works that Roberto ultimately acquired from Calder. The artist inscribed “Roberto” on the underside of the sculpture’s pivot cap.

For more information: https://tinyurl.com/bddsaxp5

[Video: Untitled (1947), sheet metal, wire, and paint. © 2026 Calder Foundation, New York / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York]

06/03/2026

The monumental stabile Gwenfritz was commissioned by philanthropist Gwendolyn Cafritz for the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC. “Perhaps you can imagine the importance of these works when I tell you that just a couple of years ago we had no contemporary sculpture at all, no funds for purchase, and a schedule which called upon us to open a national museum of American art (with healthy emphasis on the modern) in three years,” museum director David W. Scott writes in a letter to Calder on 29 June 1967. “The first thing I dreamed about was a Calder—and then Gwen came along, and insisted upon putting Calder on the Mall ... What you (and Louisa, bless her) have suggested will really amount to the turning-point in our whole sculpture presentation.” Gwenfritz is installed outside of the National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution, in direct eyesight of the Washington Monument.

For more information: https://tinyurl.com/yc4yvcfz

[Image: Gwenfritz (1968), National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, c. 1969. © 2026 Calder Foundation, New York / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; © Washington Post]

06/02/2026

We are delighted to announce upcoming performances of Earle Brown’s Calder Piece (1963–66), to be staged for the first time in Paris since its debut at the Théâtre de l’Atelier in 1967. The performances will take place on Saturday, 20 June, and Sunday, 21 June, at Fondation Louis Vuitton in connection with the retrospective Calder. Rêver en équilibre. In this radical collaboration, Calder’s large-scale standing mobile Chef d’orchestre functions as both a conductor for Brown’s open-form composition and as an instrument.

Advanced tickets are available: https://tinyurl.com/47wbbhkr

[Video: Clip from a performance of Earle Brown’s Calder Piece (1963–1966), TIME:SPANS festival, DiMenna Center for Classical Music, New York, 2023. Presented by the Calder Foundation and the Earle Brown Music Foundation. Performed by the Talujon Percussion Quartet. © 2026 Calder Foundation, New York / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York]

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