Jed Perl’s Calder
I’m on
Jed Perl’s side. I’m well into the first volume of the first biography of
Alexander Calder. It’s six hundred
pages of text, plus lots of the usual. Many of the reviewers complain about the
many details and digressions, but I didn’t mind them at all; indeed, welcomed
them. Others can mine that material to shape leaner, more specialized
biographies.
I want
to note a couple of things; not review the book. Calder—often referred to as
Sandy, a nickname for his (and his father’s and grandfather’s) name of
Alexander—had what seems like a friction-free childhood and adolescence and
pretty calm adulthood and marriage—at least to the point that I have reached.
He and then with his wife lived in various cities in the US, alternating with
periods in France—though apparently he never became very fluent in French.
Particularly interesting is the sequence of styles he went through in
his very varied creative career—from elaborate and very clever figures made
entirely of wire to super-minimalist entities inspired by a visit to Mondrian’s
studio. The Calder Circus is created much earlier than I
had thought and periodically makes its appearance when its creator makes a few
dollars with performances. The Calder Circus
started on its travels in two suitcases, but later grew to need five of them.
I’m now
past Page 400 and the word “mobile” has appeared just twice. Those creations
are still in the future, as are the works, some of them very large, that became the genre known as stabiles.
Throughout,
the book is well illustrated and printed on superior paper making the volume
unusually heavy.
The
internet says next to nothing about the “forthcoming” second volume. I hope it
sees the light of day while I’m still around.
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