Calder's Fish mobile belongs to a rare and early group of works using this subject which is so ideally suited to his unique art form. Another closely related example hung for many years in the window of the artist's home in Roxbury, Connecticut, as is documented in a famous and often reproduced photograph.

Utilizing painted steel rod bent to form the silhouette of the fish, including a large eye socket, Calder created the fish scales with a pattern of interconnected thin wires. He then suspended from strings into the center of each scale a wide range of found colored bits of glass, painted porcelain and pottery fragments. As the entire mobile twists and turns in the air, the colored scales also move through space. The effect is equally humorous and masterful.