A. Stirling Calder was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of sculptor Alexander Milne Calder and Margaret Stirling. He attended city public schools, and enrolled at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Fall 1885, at age 15. He studied under Thomas Eakins for several months, until the teacher's forced resignation in February 1886. Calder remained at PAFA, studying under Thomas Anshutz and James P. Kelly. Two of his sculptures were accepted for PAFA's 1887 annual exhibition, a rare honor for a student.[1]: 170
His father designed and was then in the midst of executing, the extensive sculpture program for Philadelphia City Hall. Calder worked as an apprentice on the project during the summers, and is reported to have modeled an arm for one of the figures. He made his first trip to Europe in Summer 1889, and returned there to study the following year.[1]: 170
In 1892, he returned to Philadelphia and began his career as a sculptor in earnest. His first major commission, won in a national competition, was for a larger-than-life-size statue of Dr. Samuel Gross (1895–97) for the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Calder replicated the pose of Dr. Gross from Eakins's 1875 painting The Gross Clinic. Another early commission was for a set of twelve larger-than-life-size statues of Presbyterian clergymen for the facade of the Witherspoon Building (1898–99) in Philadelphia.[1]: 170
In 1906, he was elected into the National Academy of Design as an Associate member, and became a full member in 1913.
In Pasadena, he modeled architectural sculpture for the Throop Polytechnic Institute (now the California Institute of Technology). He returned to the east coast in 1910.[1]: 171
In 1912, he was named acting-chief (under Karl Bitter) of the sculpture program for the Panama-Pacific Exposition, a World's Fair to open in San Francisco, California, in February 1915. He obtained a studio in NYC and there employed the services of model Audrey Munson who posed for him – Star Maiden (1913–1915) – and a host of other artists. For the exposition, Calder completed three massive sculpture groups, The Nations of the East and The Nations of the West, which crowned triumphal arches, and a fountain group, The Fountain of Energy. Following Bitter's sudden death in April 1915, Calder completed the Depew Memorial Fountain (1915–1919) in Indianapolis, Indiana.
Leif Eriksson Memorial (1929–1932), Reykjavík, Iceland
Hermon Atkins MacNeil and Calder were commissioned to create larger-than-life-size sculptures for the Washington Square Arch in New York City. George Washington as Commander-in-Chief, Accompanied by Fame and Valor (1914–1916) was sculpted by MacNeil; and George Washington as President, Accompanied by Wisdom and Justice (1917–18) by Calder. These are sometimes referred to as Washington at War and Washington at Peace.[2]
He sculpted a number of ornamental works for "Vizcaya", the James Deering estate outside Miami, Florida. These included the famous Italian Barge (1917–1919), a stone folly in the shape of a boat, projecting into Biscayne Bay.
He was one of a dozen sculptors invited to compete in Oklahoma's Pioneer Woman statue competition in 1926–27,[3] which was won by Bryant Baker. In 1927, he was also commissioned by the Berkshire Museum to sculpt the woodwork and fountain of the Museum's Ellen Crane Memorial Room in Pittsfield, Massachusetts.
In 1929, he won the national competition for a monumental statue of Leif Eriksson, to be the gift of the United States to Iceland in commemoration of the 1000th anniversary of the Icelandic Parliament. Standing before the Hallgrímskirkja, the Lutheran cathedral in Reykjavík, and facing west toward the Atlantic Ocean and Greenland, the Leif Eriksson Memorial (1929–1932) has become as iconic for Icelanders as the Statue of Liberty is for Americans.
Teacher
Throughout his career, Calder frequently worked as a teacher. He was instructor in modeling at the Pennsylvania Museum School of Industrial Art from 1899 to 1904.[4] He taught at the National Academy of Design's evening school, 1910–11, and alongside Hermon Atkins MacNeil at NAD, 1911–12. He taught modeling at the Art Students League of New York, 1918–22.[1]: 171 He was never on PAFA's faculty, but may have occasionally lectured there, where his friend Charles Grafly was instructor in sculpture.[1]: 171, n. 4
Personal
Calder married portrait painter Nanette Lederer on February 22, 1895, and they lived in Philadelphia for the first decade of their marriage. They had two children: Margaret Calder Hayes (1896–1988) and Alexander "Sandy" Calder III (1899–1976).[1]: 171 Calder contracted tuberculosis in 1905, and he and his wife moved to Arizona for a year, leaving the children with friends (to protect them from the disease). Once he recovered his health, the family was reunited in 1906, and settled in Pasadena, California.[5] They moved back east in 1910, and settled in Croton-on-Hudson, New York.[1]: 171
Six spandrel figures, cast concrete, Throop Polytechnic Institute (now California Institute of Technology), Pasadena, California, 1906–1909, Myron Hart & Elmer Grey, architects.[67]
Nature and Art, Energy and Law, Science and Imagination[68]
The Riches of the Earth – Seven terra cotta, half-domed friezes within the arched entrances.Category:Riches of the Earth (1915) by Alexander Stirling Calder – Wikimedia Commons
South Frieze, limestone, 6 ft (1.8 m) x 138 ft (42 m), depicts Missouri history in 13 bas relief panels.[70] The frieze flanks the tops of the central portico's columns and continues behind them.
North Frieze, limestone, bas relief panels depict Native Americans and Europeans.[71] The frieze flanks the tops of the central columns and continues inside the curved portico.
Throop Polytechnic Institute, c.1910.
Oakland Civic Auditorium, c.1917
Half-domed frieze
Missouri State Capitol, south façade.
Missouri State Capitol, north facade.
Four figures of famous actresses, marble, I. Miller Building, Broadway and West 46th Street, Manhattan, New York City, 1927–1929:
Life as a Dance (c.1938), Metropolitan Museum of Art, Manhattan, New York City[83]
References
Armstrong, Craven et al., 200 Years of American Sculpture, Whitney Museum of Art, NYC, 1976
Bach, Penny Balkin, Public Art in Philadelphia, Temple University Press, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1992
Calder, A. Sterling, Thoughts of A. Stirling Calder on Art and Life, Privately published, New York, 1947
Craven, Wayne, Sculpture in America, Thomas Y Crowell Co, New York 1968
Fairmount Park Art Association, Sculpture of a City: Philadelphia's Treasures in Bronze and Stone, Walker Publishing Co., Inc, New York. NY 1974
Falk, Peter Hastings, ed., Who was Who in American Art, Sound View Press, Madison Connecticut, 1985
Gadzinski, Cunningham, Panhorst et al., American Sculpture in the Museum of American Art of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Museum of American Art of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 1997
Hayes, Margaret Calder, Three Alexander Calders, Paul S Eriksson Publisher, Middlebury, Vermont, 1977
^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m nGadzinski, Cunningham, Panhorst et al.
^ a bWashington Arch: George Washington as President, from SIRIS.
^‘’Exhibition of Models for a Monument to the Pioneer Woman’’ at the Chicago Architectural Exhibition, East Galleries, Art Institute of Chicago, June 25 to August 1, 1927
^John William Leonard, ed., Men and Things: A Biographical Dictionary of Contemporaries (New York: L. R. Hamersly & Company, 1908), p. 374.
^Alexander Calder, An Autobiography with Pictures (Pantheon Books, 1966).
^Dr. Samuel Gross, from SIRIS.
^Major General John Frederick Hartranft, from SIRIS.
^A Drinking Fountain, from SIRIS.
^Anna Margaretta Archambault, A Guide Book of Art, Architecture, and Historic Interest in Pennsylvania (Philadelphia: John C. Winston Company, 1924), p. 250.
^The Sewell Cross, from SIRIS.
^Man Cub, from SIRIS.
^"Alexander Stirling Calder | Man Cub | The Metropolitan Museum of Art". Metmuseum.org. Retrieved 2014-08-10.
^Sundial, from SIRIS.
^The Missouri, from SIRIS.
^Philippe Francois Renault, from SIRIS.
^Calder Cross, from SIRIS.
^Minda Powers-Douglas, Chippiannock Cemetery (Arcadia Publishing, 2010), p. 98.[1]
^Henry Charles Lea Monument, from SIRIS.
^Stretching Girl, from SIRIS.
^ a bDavid B. Dearinger, Paintings & Sculpture at the National Academy of Design, Volume 1: 1826–1925 (Hudson Hills Press, 2004), p. 84.
^Stretching Girl, from Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.
^Najinyankte, from SIRIS.
^An American Stoic, from Bonham's Auction House.
^Star Maiden, from SIRIS.
^Stella G. S. Perry, The Sculpture and Mural Decorations of the Exposition: A Photo Survey of the Art of the Panama–Pacific International Exposition (San Francisco: Paul Elder and Company, Publishers, 1921), p. 16.[2]
^The Nations of the East, from SIRIS.
^The Nations of the West, from SIRIS.
^Stone Barge, from SIRIS.
^Woodward, Kellie (2009-10-15). "Vizcaya Museum Shop: The Stone Barge, Alexander Stirling Calder, and the Internet". Vizcayamuseumshop.blogspot.com. Retrieved 2014-08-10.
^Jed Perl, Calder: The Conquest of Time — The Early Years: 1898–1940 (Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2017), p. 14.
^Delights and Terrors of the Sea, from SIRIS.
^Leda and the Swan, from SIRIS.
^The Little Dear with the Tiny Black Swan, from Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.
^Swann Memorial Fountain, from SIRIS.
^Naiad with Tragic Mask, from PAFA.
^Naiad with Mask, from Reading Public Museum.
^Naiad with a Mask, from SIRIS.
^"Alexander Stirling Calder | Scratching Her Heel | The Metropolitan Museum of Art". Metmuseum.org. Retrieved 2014-08-10.
^Scratching Her Heel, from SIRIS.
^"Philadelphia Museum of Art – Collections Object : The Last Dryad". Philamuseum.org. 2007-02-17. Retrieved 2014-08-10.
^Shakespeare Memorial, from SIRIS.
^Tragedy and Comedy, from SIRIS.
^George Bellows, from SIRIS.
^George Wesley Bellows, from SIRIS.
^Our Lady and the Holy Child, from SIRIS.
^Our Lady and the Holy Child, from Andy Hoxie via Flickr.
^Pioneer Woman, from SIRIS.
^"Oil Magnate Refuses to Forget Land That Brought Him Wealth: There Were Women Pioneers Too". The Christian Science Monitor. April 6, 1927. p. 5A.
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