Irish Museum of Modern Art, Royal Hospital, Kilmainham
Dublin 8, Ireland
1 April - 21 June 2009
Calder Jewellery is the first exhibition of its kind devoted exclusively to the jewellery work by the American artist Alexander Calder, one of the most innovative and influential sculptors of the 20th-century.
Best known for his sculptures and mobiles this exhibition explores Calder’s lifetime production of wearable art pieces which he made for his family and friends.
The exhibition comprises some 100 pieces including necklaces, bracelets, brooches, earrings and tiaras.
Also included are photographs of those who wore his jewellery, among them are Angelica Huston, Georgia O’Keeffe and Peggy Guggneheim, which give a sense of the pieces when worn and the social dimension of their popularity.
Calder produced more than 1,800 pieces of jewellery, beginning in 1906 when he found copper wire discarded in the street and adorned his sister’s dolls.
Each piece is hammered, shaped, and composed in a fashion that echoes the artist’s sculptures.
The use of non-precious materials and found objects guided his intuitive jewellery technique, from his bohemian years of the 1920s and 1930s to the war years.
His jewellery was coveted by the Surrealist circle, and today is still highly sought after by collectors and museums.
Alexander Calder was born in Lawnton, Pennsylvania, in 1898. He attended the Art Students League, New York, from 1923 to 1926 and made his first wire sculpture in 1925.
Calder developed this new method of sculpting by bending and twisting wire – he essentially “drew” three-dimensional figures in space.
He is renowned for his striking mobiles, whose suspended, abstract elements move and balance in changing harmony.
Calder also made large outdoor sculptures from bolted sheet steel for public buildings and spaces.
He is also noted for his book illustrations and stage sets. Calder died in 1976 in New York.
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