Skulpturenpark Köln

Alexander Calder (b.1898 in Lawton, Pa., d.1976 in New York) taught himself to draw and was then encouraged by Piet Mondrian to try abstraction. His first animal figures in wire and cork (Circus) were made in 1927, his motorised Mobiles in 1932 and in the following year the first fixed, sheet steel constructions, the Stabiles (Jean Arp). They can be found in public open spaces all over the world and make no attempt to conceal how they are made. As if hastily cut out, they are assembled with rivets and welded seams and joints, and their signal effect is both sublime and jolly. Calder's fame however was established by his Mobiles, with their gentle, ethereal movement in the air.