^^tta^

X
A l e x an d e r C al d e r ' s
w e ar ab l e ar t
c
By Je^Aca Holmes
ven seasoned aficionados of twenti-
eth-century art may be astonished
when they walk into the exhibition
CaBer Jewelry at the Norton Gallery of Art
in West Palm Beach and see that the great
abstract sculptor Alexander Calder was also
a prolific jewelry maker. Up until now, the
artist's work in this medium has been largely
Hg. I. C^ged CrxxJcery, by Alexander Calder
(1898-1976), c. 1945. Silver wire and ee-
ramic; length 18 Vt inches, lai^st element
5 by 2 Vi inches. Collection of Harold and
Emily Stan~, i^otogfupft by Maiia RiMedo.
All works of ail ate 2008 Calder Founda-
tion, New York City; all i^iotofp-aplis are by
courtesy of tite Calder Foundation.
Fig. 2. Brooch, by
Calder. c. 1938. Brass
wire, glass (from a car
tail light), and steel
wire; height 6 'A,
width 6 '^ incbes.
Calder Fmmibttion;
Robiedo pfiotogmph.
Fig. 3. CaMer with
his Cirque Calder
in a photograph
by Andre Kerl^sz
(1894-1985), c.
1929. Rstate of
Andi-e Kertesz/
Hitler Pictures.
relegated to a small area in the grander sur-
veys of his career, and indeed, the discov-
ery that he made jewelry at all is often met
with surprise. This article, like Cnltkr Jetf-
trliy, seeks to shed light on this little-known
aspect of the artists work while bringing it
to a new audience of collectors and schol-
ars. Of particular note is how the jewelify
informed, and was informed by, Calder's
unparalleled kinetic sculpture, especially in
the beginning stages oi his career.
Calder fashioned his earliest works of
jewelry as a child, remembering later that,
"My sister had quite a Few dolls fbr which
we made extraordinary jewelry from beads
and very fme copper wire that we found in
the street left over by men splicing electric
cables."' Though an unusually creative child,
whose parents were both artists (his Father
was a classically trained sculptor and his
mother a painter), his future as an artist
was far from predestined. After graduat-
ing from Stevens Institute of Technology
in Hoboken, New Jersey, in 1919, with a
degree in mechanical engineering, Calder
spent ihe next several years toiling at a series
of engineering jobs that he found unfulfill-
ing. It was while working as a timekeeper
in a logging camp in Washingtt)n Slate in
1923 that he was inspired to try his hand at
painting. "Through some business connec-
tion, father had known a certain Canadian
engineer....I went to Vancouver and called
on him, and we had quite a talk about what
career I should follow. He advised me to do
what I really wanted to do....So, 1 decided
to become a painter."^ He retumed to New
York City, where his parents were living, in
fascinated from the start. "I spent two full
weeks there practically evei^y day and night.
I could tell by the music what acl was getting
on and used to rush lo some vantage point.
S<jme acts were better seen from above and
others from belo\v."'* This encoimter. from
which he garnered much firsthand knowl-
edge, served Calder well when he departed
for Paris the following year.
"So Paris seemed the place to go, on ac-
counts of practically everyone who had
been there, and I decided I would also like
to go," he later recalled.^ On July 2, 1926, he
boarded a transatlantic freighter bound for
order to devote his time to his nascent ar-
tistic career.
Calder spent the next two-and-a-half years
in the city, attending classes at the Art Stu-
dents League and working as a freelance
illustrator for the National Police Gazette.
He frequented the Ringling Brothers and
Barnuni and Bailey Circus for two weeks
during its engagement in New York in 1925
and became intimately acquainted with it,
illustrating circus scenes for the magazine,
which published a selection of them in the
May 23, 1925 issue.^ The young artist was
Hull, England, and eventually crossed into
France by ferry, arriving on July 24 in Paris,
the early twentieth century's unchallenged
cultural capital of the world. Though he still
considered himself primarily a painter, Calder
'soon was making small animals from wood
and wire and articulating them."^ From these
early experiments his work evolved into his
first significant artistic achievement. Cirque
Calder {see Fig. 3). Made between 1926 and
1931 and eventually comprising over 120
performers and apparatus. Cirque Calder
(Whitney Museum of American Art, New
York Cily) is an elaborate miniature circus
constructed from wire, cloth, and found
materials. Manipulated entirely by the arl-
ist. who staged the diminutive articulated
figures in two-hour circus performances for
rapt audiences, the Cirque Calder attracted
many supporters among the Parisian avant-
garde. Unlike today, when circuses are gener-
ally considered diversions for children, devo-
tees recognized such big top presentations
as profound artistic performances. Writing
of Calder's circus "performers" in 1929, the
preeminent French critic Legrand-Chabrier
put it succinctly:
They are not marionettes, to be precise. They
are stylized silhoiielles, shocking in their
niinialure resemblance, and created from
found treasures: wire, bobbins, corks, elas-
tics,...the resurrection of dead debris...do
not inlei-pret this pejorativelyon (he con-
traryfor giving new form and aesthetic life
to things cast away, is rather a divine act.^
As Calder continued to elaborate his circus
throughout the late 1920s he also evolved a
technique for sculpting entirely in wire. After
making several woi ks using both wood and
wire, a friend proposed he try working only
with the latter,^ and from this suggestion his
first purely wire work, Josephine Baker, was
born (Fig. 6). In his representation ofthe fa-
mous entertainer, who was then the toast of
Paris, Calder positioned her standing upright,
her arms and hands outstretched, her face
lifted to the sky. She is exuberant but also
meticulously composed. Her belly is formed
by a large piece of wire wound into a careful
spiral, and equally painstaking cones repre-
sent each breast. As Calder's familiarity with
wire grew, his filament sculptures became
more and more expansive and abstract, but
this debut piece is deliberate and compact.
Significantly, this Josephine Baker also wears
wire arm bangles at both of her elbows, and
each ear sports a large hoop earring. James
Johnson Sweeney once noted, "At first ihey
[Calder's jewelry works] were mainly designed
in brass wire....The technique at the outset
was clearly related to that of his first wire
sculpture, Josephuie Baker."^ The array of
Calder's spiral-motif jewelry in Figure 4 cer-
tainly evokes the spirals of the wire figure's
torso. An early pair of spectacles from 1932
Fig. 4. Selection of Ciilder's spiral-mot if jewelry,
c. 1938-c. 1958. Various nuKliuins, including gold,
brass, and steel wire; largest spiral 6 Vis by 7 '/it
inches. Calder Fouttdation; Robledo photograptt.
98 ANTIQUES
(Fig. 7) further elucidates the connection be-
tween Calder's wire sculpture and his earli-
est jewelry (presumably, these glasses were
intended for a wearer whose sense of humor
equaled Calder's own). Though in theory in-
tended for wear, the spectacles are obviously
nonviable for practical use. Complete with
litlle dangling pupils, they clearly relate to
his wire portraits of the same period, such
as one depicting his good friend the artist
Jt>an Miro (Fig. 5). Are the spectacles sculp-
ture or are they body oniamentation? They,
like so much of Calder's work, defy easy
classilication,
It was in these eariy years of Calder's artistic
careei; when he also made his first jewelry,
that he explored the themes and ideas that
he was considering in his more celebrated
art. From those early doll adornments with
copper cable remnants to his circus formed
largely of steel filament to his constructions
solely of wire, Calder's aptitude with the ma-
terial was apparent. In 1929, while on a trip
to Berlin, he remembered much lalen "Chan-
tal Quenncville Hallis, a French paintrix was
there and I made a wire Oy dangling from a
beam attached to a collar. That was about my
fii-st jewelry.""'Though the Calder Foundation
has now documented several pieces of jew-
elry that predate this necklace, it is certainly
the object that stuck in the artist's mind. Its
whereabouts is unknown today, but in an
unpublished manuscript, Calder drew an im-
age of it from memory (see Fig. 8). The little
fly dangled from a fixed structure and had
movement, not unlike the suspended pupils
of the spectacles. Even in this, one of
his earliest necklaces, as in his cir-
cus and wire sculpture, Calder was
beginning to investigate the pos-
sibilities of kinetic ail, the notion
for which he would eventually
Ijecome world renowned.
Much recently uncovered
evidence suggests that Caldcr's
production of jeweliy quick-
ly escalated. By December
1929 pieces of jewelry were
included in one of his earliest
solo galleiy exhibitions, at the
Fiftv-Sixth StiL'L't Galleries in
X
New York City. Though neither
photographs nor a checklist of
the exhibition exist, the show's
impressive roster of a title, "Alex-
ander Calder: Paintings, Wood
Sailptui-e, Toys, Wire Sculptures,
Jeweli-y, Textiles," substantiates
the inclusion of jewelry. Also
around this time Calder crafted
an amusing piece of jewelry he
termed a "chastity belt" for his
friend Elizabeth "Babe" Hawes
(1903-1971), an American journalist
and aspiring fashion designer whom
he had met in Paris, and who was an early
champion of his work. Sadly, the work is lost
and so it is impossible to know exactly how
Hawes might have worn the belt, though it
evidently showcased Calder's penchant for
wordplay and double entendre. Along with
her name, the belt spelled out oitvert la nuil,
a French cafe slogan that translates as "open
at night." When Hawes later established a
couture house in New York City, Calder oc-
casionally designed accessories and other
embellishments for her clothing."
Some examples of Calder's earliest jewelry-
do survive. In the summer of 1930 he took a
ti-ip to Corsica with a friend and later wrote to
his mother, "I meant to write you a birthday
letter two days [ago] but I made a necklace
insteadhaving brought along pliers and
wires, and found bits of things along tbe
parapets of the citadel, to put into it.. .1 bave
been making a lot more wire jewelryand
Fig. 5. Joan Mini [1893-t983}. by Calder, c. 1931.
Steel wine; h e ^ t 11 Vis, width 10 '/8 inches. Fun-
(iaci6n Pitar v Joan Mir6, Palma de MaVorca.
Spain.
Fig, 6. Josephine Baker [1906-1975], by Calder,
c. 1926. Brass wire and wood, height approxi-
inately 25 inches. Private cottectUm: photogmpti by
Peter A. Jttley.
Fig. 7. Spectacks, hy Calder, c 1932. Steel wire;
height 4 *A, width 5 '/S, depth 6 inches. Private cot-
tection, courtesy of GuggeiJwim Aslier Associates;
Robtedo photograph.
MARCH 2008
99
tbink I'll really do something
with it, eventually."'^ Made
of individual bits of broken
pottery, each one encased by
Calder in its own small wire
cage, the necklace is a complex
and painstaking work of art,
despite its composition from
the humblest of materials {Fig.
11). Likewise, a photograph of
Calder in his Paris studio taken
by Therfese Bonney in Novem-
ber of tbe same year (Fig. 9)
shows a large number of his
jewels on the wall behind him,
many of them composed of
found glass or ceramic secured
in wire encasements. Thus, his
lifelong proclivity for making
things fi om refuse, sciaps, and
found objectsinitiated with
the childhood doll adornments
and carried on in the
dants is a large necklace made
from pieces of nickel silver wire
(Fig. 10). As Calder's skill as a
jewelry maker improved, the
pieces be fashioned became
more confident. Though this
necklace is heavy in weight, it
is the first known piece where
the artist has hammered the
wire flat, instead of allowing it
to retain its cylindrical shape.
He improved upon this tech-
nique of hammering the wire
and soon was producing neck-
laces and other adornments
that, though equally expan-
sive (or often even more so),
retained both a physical and
emotional buoyancy. Even at
their most sizable, they project
a lightness of spirit.
It is unsurprising that even
as Calder was just fully
Cirque Calderwas also manifested in many
pieces of his jewelry. Indeed, Calder never
used precious stones in bis work, but in bis
bands discarded bits took on a new life. In
necklaces and brooches like those pictured in
Figures I and 12, he refashioned fragments
of a broken disb and chunks of colored glass,
respectively, into stunning gemlike creations.
And, in Figure 2, even a piece from a car's
broken tail light is buffed to a rubyesque shine
and showcased in the center of a large brass
brooch. As one reviewer aptly put it, "If the
lady of fashion has the wit to see it, she may
find that [Calder's] pieces of human ingenuity
make lather more distinguished ornaments
than Cartier's portable currency."'^
The Bonney photograph uncovers what
was likely typical of his jewelry-makini;
stylo in these first years. Most examples
Irom 1930 and earlierrare to find to-
dayare intricate, and tend to be small
and somewhat tentative in their design.
However, a harbinger of the end to
which Caldei-'s jewelry would evolve
is visible on tbe northern edge of
the photograph. Hanging above
ihe diminutiw earnings and pen-
Fig. 8. Page 50 from "The Evolution," hy Calder,
manuscript, 1955-1956, conlaining a sketch of a
necklace Caldcr had designed for Chantal Qucnne-
ville Hallis (1897-1969) in 1929. Catder Foundatiot).
Fig. 9. Calder in his Paris studio, uith an aimy of
his early jewelry on the wall hehind him, in a pho-
tograph by Therese Bonney (1894-1978), 1930. New-
York Ptibtic Library, Miriam and Ira D. Watlach Di-
vision of Art, Prints mid Pholograplts Bancroft Li-
brary, University of California, Berkeley.
Fig. 10. Necklace, hy Calder, c. 1930. Nickel silver
uire; inner cincimiferencc 39 inches. Caldei- Founda-
tion; Robledo phot
realizing his capabilities as a jewelry maker,
he was also already toying with grander pos-
sibilities, for the Bonney photograph happens
to have been taken at a key moment In his
development as an artist. Only a month pri-
or, in October 1930, Calder bad visited Piet
Mondrian (1872-1944), the premiere abstract
artist of tbe early twentieth century, at his
studio in the rue du Depart in Paris. Upon
arriving at the studio, Catder was dazzled
by tbe aii"y room with large windows, fi om
100 ANTIQUES
MARCH 2008
101
which light poured in on both sides.
Between these two windowed waits
was a third solid wall, to which Mon-
drian had tacked a variety of colored
rectangles.
/ suggested to Mondrian that perhaps
it would he fun to make these rectan-
gles oscillate. And he, with a very seri-
ous countenance, said: "No, it is
not necessary, my painting is al-
ready x'ery [ast."...T}us one vis-
it gave me a shock (hat started
tlwigs. Though I had heard
the word "modern" before, I
did not consciously know or
feel the term "abstract." So now
at thirty-two, 1 wanted to paint
and work in the abstract. And for
two weeks or so, I painted very modest
abstractions. At the end of this, I re-
verted to plastic work which was still
abstract.'"^
Early in 1931 Calder created the
first mobile, a moving sculpture whose
namecoined by Marcel Duchamp (1887-
1968)mean.s both motion and motive in
French. The first of his mobiles were driven
by electrical cranks and motors, and in 1932
he vras given his first solo exhibition of these
innovative moving sculptures entitled Calder
Ses Mobiles at the Galerie Vignon in Paris.
Throughout the 1930s Calder continued to
refine his concept ol kinetic sculpture, even-
tually abandoning the mechanical element of
the mobiles In favor of those whose elements
were driven solely by air currents.
By tbe eaiiy 1940s he had become renowned
as a sculptor for hLs invention of the mobile. Biit
though his i-eputation had been established, and
he was well represented by an eminent dealer- in
New York City (having joined Piene Matisse's
stable of modem artists in 1934), a dependable
fi\'ing was fai" from assuiied. As the United States
dragged itself from the pits of the Depression
and then entered into W<jrld War II, few of its
citizens were granted economic certainty. Now
married with two young daughters, Calder
sustained his side interest in jewelry making,
which supplied a secondaiTy, and sometimes
steadier, income. Though his jewelry had been
exhibited several times throughout the 1930s,
it was Calder's exhibition at the Willard Gal-
Iei"y in New York Cit\' in December 1940 that
tnaly put it on the map. Enthusiastic about
Calder's creations, tbe influential dealer Mar-
ian Wiilarti (1904-1985) threw all her efforts
into promoting the show, getting the fashion
magazine Harper's Bayiar to photograph the
Fig. 12. Brooch, by Calder,
c. 1938. Brass wire, glass,
mirror, and steel wire;
height 9 Vi, width 5
uichcs. Colder I-'oiindation;
Robii-do photograph.
jewelry for its pages. "The photographs of
Calder's jewelry turned out beautifully...we
will publish these in December or Januar>',"
wrote the magazine's legendary editor, Carmel
Snow (1887-1961), to Willai-d.^^ The exhibition
featured well over one hundred pieces of bis
jewelry, and in the sui"viving installation plio-
tographs, Calder's evolution in the medium is
evident. Unlike the small careful pieces tacked
up on the wall in the Bonney photograph,
the majority of works featured at the Willard
Gallen' weir expansive, daring, and bold (see
Fig. 15). The wire was mainly hammered flat,
creating a sweeping and dramatic effect. His
adornments were now audacious and deliber-
ately abstract. Brooches were designed to be
the centerpiece of an outfit, bracelets made to
swath most of a woman's forearm. Many of
the earrings and necklaces were reminiscent
of Calder's mobiles, with dangling elements
and moving parts. In the top corner
of one of the installation photo-
graphs (Fig. 13) are elements
of a masterpiece of Calder's
jewelry, a necklace called The
Jealotis Htisband. Now in the
Metropolitan Museum of Art
in New York City, it is "almost
more a garment than a piece
of jeweli">', a i"emnant fi om a
comic suit of armor Calder never
completed^with a threatening air
of defiance," wrote Hilton Kramer in
1976. '^ At the time, among all of Calder's many
great works, the necklace (modeled by Anjelica
Houston), had been chosen to be featured on
tbe cover of tbe New York Times Magazine on
the occasion of the retrospective of Calder's
work at the Wliitney Museum of Ameiican Ait
(see Fig. 14)." "I w(iuld rather keep the thing on
the bbjct d'art' basis,''^ Calder once infoi'med
Willard of his jewelry (she had been inquiring
if Calder would be interested in having select
items mass-produced for retail sale). Indeed,
elaborate sculptural works like The Jealous
Husband seem to confirm his belief that each
piece of his jewelry was first and foremost a
unique work of art. Quite a few pieces are so
grand in nature that donning them is imprac-
tical^they seem to have been designed not to
be worn at all. His zeal for making these ex-
quisite but hardly wearable works sometimes
bad to be tempered by his pragmatic dealer,
such as when Willard gently chided him, "Re-
member the small, well fashioned, wearable
ones are wbat we will cash in on."'^ Build-
ing on the success of the 1940 show at her
gallery, Willard remained Calder's exclusive
jewelr>" dealer for the next twenty years. She
held a second successful show of his jewelry
in 1941, despite the unibrtunate liappenstance
of its vernissage on December 7. By the time
Calder and Willard heard the news that the
Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor, it was
too late to reschedule the opening. "In spite
of all," Calder recalled, "quite a few people
came to see the show."^"
As he turned his attention to other pursuits
later in his career (namely the fabrication of
his monumental sculptures that now grace
cities and public plazas worldwide), Calder's
output of jewelry, so prodigious tbroughout
the 1940s, tapei'ed off. However, the eighteen
hundred or so earrings, necklaces, rings, ti-
aras, and brooches constitute a revelatory
102 ANTIQUES
part of liis oeuvre. Caldei's
rather than a disparate element, is
integral to his entire body of work.
The themes he explored in his earli-
est and most re\'olulionar\- sculptural
works-incorporating abstraction
and movement wbere previously
there had been none^were tbe
same as those he explored in bis
jewelry'. The results of his efforts
were brilliant oi'iginal pieces ibat
transformed their wearers into liv-
ing works of art. As Willaid so aptly
put it, in words that are as fresh
today as they were in 1940, "These
works of art are savage and deliber-
ate and self-confidently sophisticated....This
is a master modern artist's contribution to
the history of fashion. For a world already
in chains it is superb stuff."^'
Calder Jewelry is on view at the Norton Mu-
seum of Art in West Palm Beach, Florida,
through June 15. Co-organized by the museum
and the Calder Foundation, future showings
will be listed in Calendar. A fully illustrated
monograph of the same title is published by
the Calder Foundation and distributed by Yale
University Press.
' Alexander Calder, "Voici iinc petite histoire de mon
oiique," in Pennanence dii Cirque (Reviie Neiil, Paris.
1952), p. 37; translation by Lily Lyons.
' Alexander Caldec, Calder. an Aiitobiogmplry with Pictuivs
(Piinlheon Books, Neu* York, 1966), p. 59!
' "Seeing the Cii-cus with 'Sandy' CsldeiV' NaUoruil Police
Gazeite, May 23. 1925, p. 14.
Caider, Calder. p. 73.
' ^ Ibid., p. 76.
" Ibid., p. 80.
^ Legrand-Chabrier, "Alexandre Calder et son cirque
auloniat," La Volonie (Paris), May 19, 1929; translation
by Lyons.
** Calder, Calder. p. 80.
'' James Johnson Sweeney, Alexander Calder (Museum
of Modem Art, New York\ 1943), p. 56.
'^ Hillon Kninier, "Toys, Tnvctsand Serving Tr-ays,"Afen'
York Tiiufs Magazine, October 17, 1976, p. 74.
" Calder's Universe, held at ihe Whitney Museum of
American Art froni October 14, 1976, lo February 6,
1977. included appn>ximately three hundred works of
art, of which tweniy-one were pieces of jewelry. See
Jean Lipman, CaUler's Unixvise (1976, i-eprint Running
Press, Philadelphia, 1999).
"^ Calder to Willaixl, October 23, 1941, Calder Founda-
tion archives.
'** Willard to Calder, OclobL-r 1, 1941, ibid.
^^ Calder, Cakler, p. 179.
^' From Willard's "Calder Jewelry" press release, 1940,
Calder Foundation archives.
JESSICA HOLMES Is ihe deputy director of ihe
Colder Foundation in New York City ami a con-
irihulor to the exhibition catalogue
Ca\der 3ewdry (2007).
Kig. 13, Installation shot of the
Cftlder Jewvby exhihition al the VVil-
liird Gallery, New York City, 1940, by
Fred Hamilton. Prii^ate collection.
Fig. 14. Anjelica Huston modeling
The Jealous Hnsltand, a brass wire
necklace of c. 1940 by Calder, in a
photograph by Evelyn Hofer <1922-),
1976. The photograph appeared on
the cover of the AVit* Ihrk limes
Magazine, Oct.iher 17, 1976. Cf^kc-
tion of Evelyn Hofer.
Fig. 15. Installation shot of the
Catder Jexivlry exhihition at the Wil-
lard Gallery bj' Hamilton. Ptixtite
' Alexander Calder, "The Evolution," manuscript,
1955-1956, p. 50, Calder Foundation archives. New
York City.
" See Elizaheih Hawe.s, Fashion h Spiuach (Random
House, New Yoi'k, 1938), p. 136; and Beilina Bcicli, Radi-
cal hy Design: The Life aud St\'U of Ekuihclli llmve.s (E.
P. Dutton, Neu' York. 1988), pp. 34-35.
'^ Calder lo his mother, Nanette Lederer Calder. Augu.st
6, 1930, Calder Fountlation archives.
'^ "Alexander Calder at the Mayor Gallery," New States-
man (Did Nation, December 11, 1937, p. 1016.
I-* Calder, Cfl/fK 113.
'^ Carmel Snow to Marian Willard, October 16, 1940,
Calder Foundation archives. The photograph.s do not
appear to have been published, judging by a search of
Harper's issues from Decemi?er 1940 lo Febniarv 1941.
MARCH 2008
103