Calder: The Conquest of Time: The Early Years: 1898-1940

by Jed Perl

The first biography of America's greatest twentieth-century sculptor, Alexander an authoritative and revelatory achievement, based on a wealth of letters and papers never before available, and written by one of our most renowned art critics. Alexander Calder is one of the most beloved and widely admired artists of the twentieth century. Anybody who has ever set foot in a museum knows him as the inventor of the mobile, America's unique contribution to modern art. But only now, forty years after the artist's death, is the full story of his life being told in this biography, which is based on unprecedented access to Calder's letters and papers as well as scores of interviews. Jed Perl shows us why Calder was--and remains--a barrier breaker, an avant-garde artist with mass appeal.     This beautifully written, deeply researched book opens with Calder's wonderfully peripatetic upbringing in Philadelphia, California, and New York. Born in 1898 into a family of artists--his father was a well-known sculptor, his mother a painter and a pioneering feminist--Calder went on as an adult to forge important friendships with a who's who of twentieth-century artists, including Joan Miró, Marcel Duchamp, Georges Braque, and Piet Mondrian. We move through Calder's early years studying engineering to his first artistic triumphs in Paris in the late 1920s, and to his emergence as a leader in the international abstract avant-garde. His marriage in 1931 to the free-spirited Louisa James--she was a great-niece of Henry James--is a richly romantic story, related here with a wealth of detail and nuance.      Calder's life takes on a transatlantic richness, from New York's Greenwich Village in the Roaring Twenties, to the Left Bank of Paris during the Depression, and then back to the United States, where the Calders bought a run-down old farmhouse in western Connecticut. New light is shed on Calder's lifelong interest in dance, theater, and performance, ranging from the Cirque Calder, the theatrical event that became his calling card in bohemian Paris to collaborations with the choreographer Martha Graham and the composer Virgil Thomson. More than 350 illustrations in color and black-and-white--including little-known works and many archival photographs that have never before been seen--further enrich the story.

Genres: Art, Biography, Biography Memoir, Nonfiction, History

705 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 24, 2017

Reviews

[Unigami · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a significant biography on Calder, and it's a book that Calder's legacy deserves, but if you like Alexander Calder and you are simply interested in learning more about him, I wouldn't recommend that you start with this book. It's 702 pages long and it only covers the first half of his life. It has some great photographs, but the text is pretty dry and boring and about 50% of it isn't about Calder. I'll be honest...I ended up skimming to get through it.

I would recommend that you read "Calder: An Autobiography with Pictures" by Jean Davidson, which is Calder telling his story in his own words. It's filled with wonderful anecdotes and gives you a sense of what kind of man he was. Excerpts from this autobiography are cited several times in Jed Perl's book, and they are like the pink hearts, yellow moons, orange stars, and green clovers that bring sweetness and vitality to the otherwise dry and tasteless cereal that is Lucky Charms.

There is a significant amount of supposition in Perl's biography, i.e, "Calder surely would have known about....", "We don't know if Calder (whatever), but if he had, he would have (whatever)..." etc. I began to notice this about half-way through, and that's when I looked up some reviews and saw that others had noticed it as well. The suppositions, along with the frequent excerpts from Jean Davidson's book, led me to wonder if Perl had a hard time finding new information about Calder to share with us. It's bewildering, since my understanding is that he was hand-picked to write this book by Calder's grandson, Alexander S.C. Rower, president of the Calder Foundation, so I would assume that Perl was given unlimited access to the Calder archives. Perhaps we will get some good stuff in Volume Two (yet to be published).

So...leave this one to the scholars and art historians and get yourself a copy of the Jean Davidson book and also a good retrospective such as "Alexander Calder, 1898-1976" by Marla Prather. If Calder were still around, one would suppose that he would give the same advice.

do you see what I did there? ;)

[Richard Wise · Rating 5 out of 5]

A gift from my wife for Christmas. An enthralling read. For me, fills in some of the history and philosophical underpinnings of the modern movement from 1918 on.

Son and grandson of sculptors, Calder begins by getting a degree in engineering, but soon discovers that slide rules are not for him. Still the practical foundation in mechanics stood him in good stead later and smoothed the way toward the invention of the mobile.

The author makes the point that Calder was very much involved in the artistic and philosophical debate concerning art and the 4th dimension. This discussion illuminates Calder's motives and sheds light on the earlier work of the Dadaists, Futurists and artists such as Mondrian (though a generation removed) along with the work of Helion and other artists of Calder's generation.

There is also an interesting discussion of Calder's connection to the Berkshires and The Berkshire Museum, which gave Calder his first important show when he moved from Paris and resettled permanently in the U. S. in 1932 and whose current board of trustees is busily trying to deny its history and violate its trust by selling off two Calder's originally purchased for the museum's permanent collection.

[David Nickelson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I must first admit that I am quite the art history junkie, particularly for modern, abstract and post-modern work...so if that is not your thing, then this might not be for you. Even so, Perl makes a solid argument for why Sandy should be considered among the very best of his era, and certainly a leader in changing abstract sculpture (and painting). Just like the first time a saw a Calder installation and was completely enthralled, this book provides the same emotional thrill along with intellectual and critical threads linking his unique style to those before, during and after his time. A true American original...and Perl's smart and thorough writing brings his wit, work and experience to life with just enough art criticism to show where Calder fits in the International and American Canon's without getting lost in abstraction...which would be just exactly as Sandy himself likely would have wanted it.

Highly recommend.

[timv · Rating 3 out of 5]

The vast number of images of Calder's works and the very detailed chronology of his life up to 1940 makes this book. I really enjoyed that the images were pretty much in chronological order and I appreciate it that the text and images work together to document the evolution of Caulders work.

I did tire quickly of the constant speculation by the author. To me, it almost seemed like the reiteration of the gossip pages of the time. The editing out of much of the speculative material would’ve resulted in a book that was less daunting the this 600+ page behemoth.

[Bill · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well researched and insightful. An interesting view of both Calder himself and his artistic milieu. At times Perl seems almost desperate to find dramatic connections, bigger insights and deep meanings not only in Calder’s art but in the details of his life. That leads to some excess speculation and questionably relevant references. But mostly the writing is good and he analysis thoughtful.

[Ryan Trauman · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an excellent comprehensive, relatively academic biography. But it's important to note that the genre is intended as much for researchers hunting for obscure connections and details as it is for a person trying to get a sense of the narrative arc of Calder's life. I'm not an academic, but I'm also not JUST someone looking for a good story about Calder's life; my reading goals lie somewhere in between. I LOVE how the level of detail creates a real immersion in Calder's life and ideas, but I also found myself, at times, exhausted by the slog of getting through the slow accretion of detail to find out what happens next with Calder. In other words, the abundance of detail about Calder's social life, correspondence, shows, and commissions keeps Perl from generating any real narrative momentum. I never once found myself racing to get to the next page.

But this critique isn't of Perl's ability or even his performance in this biography. I think the lack of a clear narrative arc has more to do with the complexity of Calder's body of work over time. He's always moving in multiple directions, trying to address a huge diversity of aesthetic questions. The depth of Perl's detail requires him to fully inhabit one of Calder's artistic threads at a time. But his coverage is so deep that we keep losing the moment of Calder's other interests.

It's not a perfect book, and it's a slog for someone like me. But Perl knows what he's trying to do and what he's trying to provide. This biography is fantastic within the framework of those purposes. They just don't perfectly align with what I wanted out of the reading experience. But I'm definitely getting enough that I'm looking forward to reading the second volume in Perl's Calder project, even if it is another 600 pages.

[Shana · Rating 2 out of 5]

Perl seems really to excuse Calder for how miserable the artistic women in his family were - his mother, his wife, his sister, even perhaps his daughters.

All the women in his life had equal, if not greater artistic talents than male family members, and all were expected to sacrifice their artistic lives to serve the ambitions of men.

This was typical of the time, but still, tragic. And Perl doesn't seem to mind much, even thought he does mention it, because -- Calder was a genius, so that's what really matters.

Doesn't that narrative choice on Perl's part serve to replicate and enforce the sexist choices made by the people he's writing about? Can't he as a writer be, perhaps, less sexist than his subjects?

[Cathi]

Had to stop reading for the second time to finish other works

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good; very long (the second was obvious). Would have preferred plate numbers when referring to Art.