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Lot Essay
The dramatic silhouette of Alexander Calder’s La chauve souris spotlights the strong influence of Surrealism on the artist’s sculptural practice. His unique ability to produce evocative forms out of metal dates back to the beginnings of his career when, in the 1920s and 1930s, he spent a prolonged period of time living in Paris, forging friendship with a number of influential figures that would last a lifetime. The most significant of these was with the Spanish painter Joan Miró, who’s intuitive and experimental method of working influenced Calder enormously. Beginning with his famous Paris Circus sculptures, Calder captured the inherent spirit of his subjects using his unique artistic vocabulary.
In La chauve souris Calder evokes the spirit of a bat. But this is not the typical depiction of the haunting creature often seen darting across the sky at dusk. For one thing, Calder’s creature is more solidly built than most of their real-life counterparts and is not suspended in mid-air, but shown seemingly crawling across the ground. Yet, the metal plates that culminate in a high pinnacle and the scalloped edge of one of the ’wings’ still evokes our idea of what a bat should look like. Calder’s decision to execute La chauve souris in black does much to enhance the dramatic profile. Although known for his innovative use of colour, many of Calder’s most significant works were produced in a single colour – black. One of the key factors that distinguished Calder’s work throughout his life was his use of colour, but by deliberately omitting his usual eye-catching primary colours in La chauve souris, he focuses on the purity of the form itself. This device enhances the work’s already dramatic silhouette and coupled with the other, almost minimal aspects of the piece, such as the thin, narrow body, has the effect of enhancing the work’s grace and beauty.
Executed in 1966, La chauve souris’s intimate scale comes at a time when Calder’s output was concentrated mainly on large monumental outdoor sculptures that were commissioned to fill public and private spaces all over the world. These were often fabricated in large workshops from designs drawn up by the artist, however Calder never lost his love of creating and continued to work on a number of select works which allowed him to return to the role of the artisan making pieces himself on a more individual scale. ‘Calder's characteristic material is metal,’ his friend and supporter James Johnson Sweeney had said on the occasion of his 1951 retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art. ‘He has always avoided modeling in favor of direct handling - cutting, shaping with a hammer, or assembling piece by piece. Such an approach has fostered a simplicity of form and clarity of contour in his work. It allies him with Brancusi, Arp, Moore and Giacometti in their repudiation of virtuosity’ (J.J. Sweeney, exh. cat., Alexander Calder, New York, 1951, reproduced in C. Giménez & A.S.C. Rower, eds., Calder: Gravity and Grace, London, 2004, p. 72).
The evocative curves and flowing forms that comprise La chauve souris’s graceful form are a fitting tribute to Alexander Calder’s skill as both an artist and an engineer. The ingenious nature of its conception and fabrication results in an ever dramatic work which perfectly encapsulates the beautiful simplicity of Calder’s art, succinctly summed up by a comment he made to an interviewer shortly before his death, ‘I want to make things that are fun to look at’ (A. Calder, quoted in M. Prather, exh. cat., Alexander Calder 1898-1976, Washington, D.C., 1998, p. 279).
In La chauve souris Calder evokes the spirit of a bat. But this is not the typical depiction of the haunting creature often seen darting across the sky at dusk. For one thing, Calder’s creature is more solidly built than most of their real-life counterparts and is not suspended in mid-air, but shown seemingly crawling across the ground. Yet, the metal plates that culminate in a high pinnacle and the scalloped edge of one of the ’wings’ still evokes our idea of what a bat should look like. Calder’s decision to execute La chauve souris in black does much to enhance the dramatic profile. Although known for his innovative use of colour, many of Calder’s most significant works were produced in a single colour – black. One of the key factors that distinguished Calder’s work throughout his life was his use of colour, but by deliberately omitting his usual eye-catching primary colours in La chauve souris, he focuses on the purity of the form itself. This device enhances the work’s already dramatic silhouette and coupled with the other, almost minimal aspects of the piece, such as the thin, narrow body, has the effect of enhancing the work’s grace and beauty.
Executed in 1966, La chauve souris’s intimate scale comes at a time when Calder’s output was concentrated mainly on large monumental outdoor sculptures that were commissioned to fill public and private spaces all over the world. These were often fabricated in large workshops from designs drawn up by the artist, however Calder never lost his love of creating and continued to work on a number of select works which allowed him to return to the role of the artisan making pieces himself on a more individual scale. ‘Calder's characteristic material is metal,’ his friend and supporter James Johnson Sweeney had said on the occasion of his 1951 retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art. ‘He has always avoided modeling in favor of direct handling - cutting, shaping with a hammer, or assembling piece by piece. Such an approach has fostered a simplicity of form and clarity of contour in his work. It allies him with Brancusi, Arp, Moore and Giacometti in their repudiation of virtuosity’ (J.J. Sweeney, exh. cat., Alexander Calder, New York, 1951, reproduced in C. Giménez & A.S.C. Rower, eds., Calder: Gravity and Grace, London, 2004, p. 72).
The evocative curves and flowing forms that comprise La chauve souris’s graceful form are a fitting tribute to Alexander Calder’s skill as both an artist and an engineer. The ingenious nature of its conception and fabrication results in an ever dramatic work which perfectly encapsulates the beautiful simplicity of Calder’s art, succinctly summed up by a comment he made to an interviewer shortly before his death, ‘I want to make things that are fun to look at’ (A. Calder, quoted in M. Prather, exh. cat., Alexander Calder 1898-1976, Washington, D.C., 1998, p. 279).