Alexander Calder, known to many as ‘Sandy’, was an American sculptor from Pennsylvania. He was the son of well-known sculptor Alexander Stirling Calder, and his grandfather and mother were also successful artists. Alexander Calder is known for inventing wire sculptures and the mobile, a type of kinetic art which relied on careful weighting to achieve balance and suspension in the air. Initially Calder used motors to make his works move, but soon abandoned this method and began using air currents alone.
Alexander Calder earned a degree in mechanical engineering at Stevens Institute of Technology but switched focus and enrolled at the Art Students League in 1923. With the assistance of such teachers as Guy Pene du Bois, Boardman Robinson, and John Sloan, he was introduced to printmaking and mastered drawing techniques to the point that he could complete a picture without lifting his pen. ‘I seemed to have a knack,” he observed after sketching people on the subway, “for doing it with a single line.”
