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Lot Essay
This work is registered in the archives of the Calder Foundation, New York, under application number A00827.
"Since the beginning of my work in abstract art, and even though it was not obvious at the time, I felt that there was no better model for me to work from than the Universe.... Spheres of different sizes, densities, colors and volumes, floating in space, surrounded by vivid clouds and tides, currents of air, viscosities and fragrances-in their utmost variety and disparity" --Alexander Calder
In this monumental example of his iconic sculptural form, Alexander Calder draws on a lifetime of experience to skillfully assemble a series of substantial colored metal disks in such a way that they appear to float effortlessly in the air. Noir, Rouge, Bleu (Black, Red, Blue) was executed during a period in which Calder was working on his series of Stabiles--large-scale outdoor works that were commissioned to grace plazas and public spaces the world over. Yet while much of his time was spent fabricating these vast static sculptures, he continued to produce a select number of his favorite forms--the mobile.
Distinguished by a series of amorphous black forms suspended from wires, Calder invigorates this particular example by punctuating his composition with two colorful disks--one blue, one red. In choosing these colors, Calder was using his selection, not in a figurative way, but concern only with the purity of the aesthetic effect. "I have chiefly limited myself to the use of black and white as being the most disparate colors," Calder proclaimed in 1951. "Red is the color most opposed to both of these--and then finally, the other primaries. The secondary colors and intermediate shades serve only to confuse and muddle the distinctness and clarity." (A. Calder, quoted in M. Prather, Alexander Calder 1898-1976, Washington, D.C., 1998, p. 230).
In addition to color, movement was the characteristic which distinguished Calder's art form from all others and the French existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, in his famous essay on Calder's work in the 1940s, succinctly summed up the grace, poetry and sheer joy of Calder's work, "A 'mobile,' one might say, is a little private celebration, an object defined by its movement and having no other existence. It is a flower that fades when it ceases to move, a 'pure play of movement' in the sense that we speak of a pure play of light...They are, that is all; they are absolutes. There is more of the unpredictable about them than in any other human creation. No human brain, not even their creator's, could possibly foresee all the complex combinations of which they are capable. A general destiny of movement is sketched for them, and then they are left to work it out for themselves. What they may do at a given moment will be determined by the time of day, the sun, the temperature or the wind. The object is thus always half way between the servility of a statue and the independence of natural events; each of is evolutions is the inspiration of a moment" (J. Sartre, 'The Mobiles of Calder, Alexander Calder, New York, 1947). This sentiment was echoed years later by the artist himself who summed up the essence of his work. "When everything goes right," he once said "a mobile is a piece of poetry that dances with the joy of life" (A. Calder, Calder, London, 2004, p. 261).
"Since the beginning of my work in abstract art, and even though it was not obvious at the time, I felt that there was no better model for me to work from than the Universe.... Spheres of different sizes, densities, colors and volumes, floating in space, surrounded by vivid clouds and tides, currents of air, viscosities and fragrances-in their utmost variety and disparity" --Alexander Calder
In this monumental example of his iconic sculptural form, Alexander Calder draws on a lifetime of experience to skillfully assemble a series of substantial colored metal disks in such a way that they appear to float effortlessly in the air. Noir, Rouge, Bleu (Black, Red, Blue) was executed during a period in which Calder was working on his series of Stabiles--large-scale outdoor works that were commissioned to grace plazas and public spaces the world over. Yet while much of his time was spent fabricating these vast static sculptures, he continued to produce a select number of his favorite forms--the mobile.
Distinguished by a series of amorphous black forms suspended from wires, Calder invigorates this particular example by punctuating his composition with two colorful disks--one blue, one red. In choosing these colors, Calder was using his selection, not in a figurative way, but concern only with the purity of the aesthetic effect. "I have chiefly limited myself to the use of black and white as being the most disparate colors," Calder proclaimed in 1951. "Red is the color most opposed to both of these--and then finally, the other primaries. The secondary colors and intermediate shades serve only to confuse and muddle the distinctness and clarity." (A. Calder, quoted in M. Prather, Alexander Calder 1898-1976, Washington, D.C., 1998, p. 230).
In addition to color, movement was the characteristic which distinguished Calder's art form from all others and the French existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, in his famous essay on Calder's work in the 1940s, succinctly summed up the grace, poetry and sheer joy of Calder's work, "A 'mobile,' one might say, is a little private celebration, an object defined by its movement and having no other existence. It is a flower that fades when it ceases to move, a 'pure play of movement' in the sense that we speak of a pure play of light...They are, that is all; they are absolutes. There is more of the unpredictable about them than in any other human creation. No human brain, not even their creator's, could possibly foresee all the complex combinations of which they are capable. A general destiny of movement is sketched for them, and then they are left to work it out for themselves. What they may do at a given moment will be determined by the time of day, the sun, the temperature or the wind. The object is thus always half way between the servility of a statue and the independence of natural events; each of is evolutions is the inspiration of a moment" (J. Sartre, 'The Mobiles of Calder, Alexander Calder, New York, 1947). This sentiment was echoed years later by the artist himself who summed up the essence of his work. "When everything goes right," he once said "a mobile is a piece of poetry that dances with the joy of life" (A. Calder, Calder, London, 2004, p. 261).