This biography from the Archives of AskART:
|  Alexander Stirling Calder was a sculptor working in the Beaux-Arts*
style. The son of Alexander Milne Calder, and the father of
Alexander (Sandy) Calder, he was born in Philadelphia. At the age
of sixteen, he enrolled at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts*,
where he studied drawing with Thomas Eakins. In 1890 he left to
study at the Academie Julian* in Paris under Henri Chapu and with Alexandre
Falguiere at Ecole des Beaux-Arts*, Paris, France.
Calder
returned to Philadelphia after two years in Paris and began to produce
figurative work and portraits. In 1903, he became an instructor
at the Philadelphia Museum School of Industrial Art.
After moving to New York City in 1910, he taught at National Academy of
Design*, and later at the Art Student's League*. Calder received
national recognition, and by 1915, was directing the entire sculptural
program for the Panama-Pacific Exposition* in San Francisco. His
finest sculptural contribution to that exposition was the Fountain of Energy.
Calder received commissions for the Depew Fountain in Indianapolis
(1915), a statue of George Washington for one pier of the Washington
Square Arch in New York City (1918), the Swann Memorial Fountain in
Philadelphia (1924), and the Leif Ericsson Memorial in Reykjavik,
Iceland (1932). During the final decade of Calder's artistic
career, he was overshadowed by his son.
Source:
Matthew Baigell, Dictionary of American Art
* For more
in-depth information about these terms and others, see AskART.com Glossary
http://www.askart.com/AskART/lists/Art_Definition.aspx
| |
This biography from the Archives of AskART:
|  Born in Philadelphia, PA on Jan. 11, 1870, Alexander Stirling Calder
was the son of sculptor Alexander Milne Calder (1846-1923). The
younger Calder first studied under his father, followed by work at the
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts under Thomas Eakins and Thomas
Anshutz, and in Paris at Ecole des Beaux Arts.
For health reasons, he first came west in 1905, and in 1906 moved to
Pasadena, living initially on Euclid Avenue and later in a converted
barn above the Arroyo Seco. During his four years there, he
sculpted the panels on the portico of the Throop Polytechnic Institute.
He lived in northern California during 1912-15 when he maintained
studios in San Francisco and Berkeley. During this period he
served as acting chief of sculpture and member of the jury of awards
for the Panama Pacific International Exposition as well as exhibiting
two large sculpture groups and a Fountain of Energy.
The remainder of his career was spent in New York City where he died on
Jan. 7, 1945. He was the father of sculptor Alexander Calder
(1898-1976) who created mobiles.
Member: National Academy, 1913
Exhibition: Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Expo (Seattle), 1909 (grand prize).
Collection:
Throop Institute (Pasadena); Metropolitan Museum; Smithsonian Institution
| Source:
Edan Hughes, "Artists in California, 1786-1940"
Southern California Artists (Nancy Moure); Sculpture of the Exposition; California Design, 1910; NY Times, 1-8-1945 (obituary). | | Nearly 20,000 biographies can be found in Artists in California 1786-1940 by Edan Hughes and is available for sale ($150). For a full book description and order information please click here. |
| ** If you discover credit omissions or have additional information to add, please let us know at registrar@AskART.com. |
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Alexander Calder is also mentioned in these AskART essays:
San Francisco Panama-Pacific Exhibition 1915
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