Uprooted Whip

Alexander Calder’s Uprooted Whip, executed in 1940, is a triumphal example of one of the artist’s early stabile sculptural forms. Rising from the ground on four pointed stems—three red, and one startling blue— unfurling in sinuous, anthropomorphic splendor, its black tip snaking elegantly towards the sky. The artist Jean Arp had first used the term “stabile” in 1931 in reference to Calder’s small static sculptures; the word stood in deliberate opposition to “mobile”, the name which Marcel Duchamp had proposed as an apt descriptor for the artist’s hanging, freely-moving sculptures. The increased scale and ambition of the stabiles from 1937 onwards reflected Calder’s growing international acclaim, which resulted in major commissions for the Paris World’s Fair and the new Museum of Modern Art building in New York, as well as the artist’s first retrospective. In 1942, the work was included in the Fifth Anniversary Exhibition at New York’s Museum of Non-Objective Painting—subsequently known as the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum—thus inscribing it in the institution’s early history. It was acquired by the Pragers in 1970, and remained under their stewardship for the rest of their lives.

Despite the non-kinetic nature of these stabiles, Uprooted Whip is nonetheless infused with a palpable sense of organic motion. The expression ‘drawing in space’ had been variously used in relation to Calder’s early mobiles, and a similarly liberated, graphic impetus is evident in the present work’s sensuous linear form. A loose, vivacious sketch of the piece in a letter to Hilla Rebay, who was instrumental in the establishment of both the Museum of Non-Objective Painting and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, demonstrates the intuitive sense of animation with which Calder conceived the work. Rebay subsequently acquired a hybrid mobile-stabile (Yucca, 1941) from the same period for the museum’s collection, which the celebrated photographer Herbert Matter had photographed in Calder’s Roxbury studio alongside Uprooted Whip. While the influences of Surrealism and geometric abstraction are evident—Calder was close to Joan Miró, and had been inspired early on by a visit to Piet Mondrian’s studio—the work also demonstrates the artist’s evolving dialogue with the natural world. Plants, animals and the cosmos came to nourish his aesthetic during this period: here, the term “whip” refers to a young unbranched tree, its exposed roots imbuing the work with a curiously metamorphic, near-human quality. Combining rigorous engineering with visionary fantasy, it is a testament to the spirit of innovation and imagination that the Pragers themselves embodied.

Two of New York City’s most influential cultural figures, David and Annabelle Prager lived their lives in service of the arts. Married for thirty-eight years, they were passionate connoisseurs, devoted patrons and visionary advocates, who believed that creativity was the key to a better and fairer society. Annabelle founded the pioneering InterSchool Orchestras of New York, creating unparalleled musical opportunities for children from all walks of life. David was a lawyer who, throughout his career, fought to preserve some of Manhattan’s most important architectural landmarks. United by their shared love of artists and composers, they championed imaginative thinking and intellectual curiosity; in their professional lives, they translated these instincts into powerful social action. The Pragers’ combined legacies had a transformative impact on multiple generations of New York citizens, demonstrating that support of the arts has the power to change the world around us.

One of the most innovative artist’s of his generation, Calder was one of the few artists who can correctly claim to have redefined a genre. Uprooted Whip provides early evidence of Calder’s innovative style, liberating sculpture from its static traditions and infusing it with chromatic richness. Creating an object of extreme grace and elegance out of solidity of metal is a clear demonstration of both his aesthetic vision and engineering prowess. Powerful yet graceful, and colorful yet elegant, and with the sophisticated proportions that ensures it always controls the space it inhabits, Uprooted Whip is pure Calder. But ultimately this work is a reflection of the joy Calder found in his art and the happiness it gave others, as he once commented, "When everything goes right a mobile is a piece of poetry that dances with the joy of life and surprises" (A. Calder, Calder, London, 2004, p. 261).