Alexander Calder was one of the most prolific artists of the 20^th Century. He is best known for the mobile, which is a kinetic sculpture featuring moving objects balanced in air. His mobiles are often hung from the ceiling in large public buildings, with delicately balanced metal discs that move in interesting ways. Calder is also known for a static form of sculpture called the stabile. The bright red creation titled “La Grande Vitesse,” located in downtown Grand Rapids, is a stabile. The work pictured on the cover of this book is a stabile-mobile, incorporating both fixed and movable elements.

I picked up this book, by Jacob Baal-Teshuva, several years back at the Museum of Modern Art gift shop for ten dollars. It’s 95 pages and includes photographs of works spanning his entire career, plus a bibliography and a timeline of important events in the artist’s life.

Here are a few more notes about Calder:

• His nickname was Sandy.
• He is described as a loving family man with a sunny disposition. He was known to have had many friends.
• His father and grandfather were both sculptors, in the classical style.
• He was born in Philadelphia and lived in New York City and Connecticut. He also spent many years in France.
• He had a degree in mechanical engineering.
• His works in France included an elaborate model of a circus, with moving elements, as well as wire sculptures of Josephine Baker and other celebrities.
• He did many paintings, most with bright, primary colors.
• He painted three jet airliners for Braniff Airlines.
• He also created toys and jewelry.
• Calder’s Flamingo, a stabile in Chicago, was featured in the 1986 film “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.”
• There are THREE Calders in New York City (that I am aware of). There’s a black stabile at Lincoln Center; a red stabile at 57^th Street and Madison Avenue; and a red, yellow and blue stabile-mobile called “Janey Waney,” in Gramercy Park.
• He had a big exhibition a few years back at the Whitney Museum, and he’s got a big exhibition currently on display at the MoMA.
• Nobody from Grand Rapids says La Grande Vitesse, ever. To us, it is simply The Calder. It was dedicated in 1969.
• He died in 1976.

If you ask me, most of Calder’s paintings and sculptures are instantly recognizable. I love his works because they bring joy.