Artwork overview
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Medium
wire
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Credit Line
Gift of Lenore S. Greenberg in honor of her parents, Rita and Taft Schreiber
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Dimensions
overall: 64.14 cm (25 1/4 in.)
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Accession Number
2025.16.1
Artwork history & notes
Provenance
Acquired 1929 by Dr. Hans Cürlis [1889-1982], Berlin, to 1967.[1] (Galerie Michael Hertz, Bremen, by 1967); sold 22 December 1967 to (Perls Galleries, New York); purchased February 1968 by Taft B. and Rita Bloch Schreiber, Beverly Hills;[2] by inheritance to Lenore S. and Bernard Greenberg; gift 2025 to NGA.
[1] A filmmaker and art historian, Cürlis filmed Calder creating the sculpture in 1929 in conjunction with an exhibition of the artist's wire sculpture at the Galerie Nierendorf in Berlin (Schaffende Hände. Drahtplastiken, 1929). The work remained with Cürlis along with a wire portrait Calder made of him. See entry by Cürlis in 1920-1970: Fünfzig Jahre Galerie Nierendorf. Rückblick, Dokumentation, Jubiläumsausstellung. Berlin, 1970: 31. Cürlis lent both works to a Calder retrospective at the Akademie der Künste, Berlin, in 1967.
[2] See invoices and correspondence about Perls's acquisition of the sculpture from Hertz and subsequent sale to Taft Schreiber in the Perls Galleries Records, 1937-1995, Archives of American Art, boxes 19 and 36, copies of relevant documents in NGA curatorial files..
Associated Names
Exhibition History
1967
Alexander Calder, Akademie der Künste, Berlin, 1967, no. 98, as Two Acrobats, repro.
Skulpturalen Inventionen vom Jahrhundertbeginn bis Heute, Galerie MIchael Hertz, Bremen, 1967, no. 15, as Two Acrobats, repro.
1968
24 Major Acquisitions, Perls Galleries, New York, 1968, no. 5, repro.
Bibliography
1970
Galerie Nierendorf. _ 1920 -1970; fünfzig Jahre Galerie Nierendorf. Rückblick, Dokumentation, Jubiläumsausstellung._ Berlin, 1970: 31.