Where did Alexander Calder work?
He instead enrolled at the Stevens Institute of Technology after high school and graduated in 1919 with an engineering degree (fig. 5). Calder worked for several years after graduation at various jobs, including as a hydraulics and automotive engineer, timekeeper in a logging camp, and fireman in a ship’s boiler room.
What work did Alexander Calder do?
Alexander Calder is known for inventing wire sculptures and the mobile, a type of kinetic art which relied on careful weighting to achieve balance and suspension in the air. Initially Calder used motors to make his works move, but soon abandoned this method and began using air currents alone.
What did Calder study and work as?
He studied mechanical engineering at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, NJ, before becoming one of the most celebrated artists in the world. In addition to working as a steamboat fireman, automotive engineer, logging camp timekeeper, and hydraulic engineer, he also held other odd jobs.
Where did Alexander Calder make his art?
Surrounded by his family and working in a large studio he built in Roxbury, Connecticut, from 1958 to the 1970s Calder created numerous, monumental public sculptures. While these included some mobiles, his outdoor works were more often large-scale stabiles.
Was Alexander Calder an engineer?
But perhaps the outstanding example of an artist whose early career informed what came next is Alexander Calder, the mechanical engineer who invested in his art the personal, first-hand knowledge of materials and forces that made his mesmerising mobiles not only the first but arguably still the best sculptures of their …
Did Alexander Calder invent the mobile?
Artist Alexander Calder was the originator of the mobile. By suspending forms that move with the flow of air, Calder revolutionised sculpture. It was Marcel Duchamp who dubbed these works ‘mobiles’.
What training did Calder receive as an artist?
In 1915, Calder enrolled at the Stevens Institute, where he obtained a bachelor’s degree in engineering four years later. College records indicate that the future artist excelled in mechanical drawing, descriptive geometry, mechanical engineering laboratory, and applied kinetics.