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Alexander Calder, A Universe, 1934, motor-driven mobile: painted iron pipe, wire, and wood with string, 40 1/2" (102.9 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of Abby Aldrich Rockefeller (by exchange). Photograph © 2000 The Museum of Modern Art, New York
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Universes:
The Beginning
(1930-1934)
Before
working on Constellations, Calder made a series he later called
Universes. In 1951 he wrote:
The underlying sense of form in my work has been the system
of the Universe, or part thereof….What I mean is that the idea of detached
bodies floating in space, of different sizes and densities, perhaps of
different colors and temperatures, and surrounded and interlarded with
wisps of gaseous condition, and some at rest, while others move in peculiar
manners, seems to me the ideal source of form.
Calder
often spoke of the influence the cosmos had on him. The Universes
series was also inspired by mathematical concepts, which can
be attributed
to Calder’s background in engineering. Later, Calder
would say that
his ideas for the Constellations were born in this earlier
series.
 
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