Alexander Calder Mobiles and Stabiles: Calder 1941 Exhibition at Pace Gallery 57th Street

Alexander Calder artowork

It was one of the great outpourings that the art world had ever seen: in 1941, Alexander Calder, having worked with his signature mobiles and stabiles for almost a decade, just exploded with creative innovation and energy, pushing his now-familiar form into new territory. Alexander Calder mobiles had bolder colors, a greater variety, and, thanks to mastering a new system of weights and balances, a more delicate feel to his work than ever before. Most of the mobiles and wire sculptures Calder created that year were snatched up by private collectors almost immediately, and very few Alexander Calder sculptures have been available for any kind of exhibition since then. Until now.      

Midtown Pace Gallery Presents Alexander Calder 1941 Mobile and Stabile Exhibition

Alexander Calder artowork

“Calder 1941” at the Pace Gallery on East 57th Street is a terrific, historic show, showcasing a dozen or so of Alexander Calder’s mobile work from that seminal year, including such true masterpieces as Boomerang, Un effet du japonais, and Vertical Foliage. Calder 1941 at the Pace Gallery also has on exhibit the artist’s monumental (for him) stabile Tree, shown for the first time since Calder’s MoMA retrospective in 1943. While far from our favorite piece in the Calder 1941 Pace exhibition, Tree is interesting both from a historical perspective as well aesthetically, being the only mobile sculpture here for which Alexander Calder used glass and plastic as his dangling weights, including, apparently, a bright red chunk of a car’s taillight.  

Alexander Calder artowork

Alexander Calder artowork

We really enjoyed the Calder 1941 show at Pace: after all, these are some of the most iconic works of the century, and many of them are truly lovely, with a elegant simplicity, an almost-daring fragility, AND a unmistakable sense of playfulness. Or, put another way, by none other than Marc Glimcher, the president of Pace Galleries: “The year [1941] is particularly marked by these unbelievable arcing lines, that are so beautiful, the result of a very fine level of balancing in the work. The lines look like lines that are drawn. They don’t look like lines that exist in physical space. It tricks your eye.” Very nice.

Alexander Calder artowork

Take in “Calder 1941” Exhibition of Mobile Art at Pace Gallery New York City

Calder 1941 will be on display at Pace Gallery through December 23. Pace is located at 32 East 57th Street, between Madison and Park Avenues, as is open Tuesday through Friday from 9:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., and on Saturdays from 10:00 a.m. until 6:00. For more information, please check out the Pace Gallery website.   

Alexander Calder artowork

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