ALEXANDER CALDER (United States, 1898 - 1976).
"Fig. 1Gaspar Room", 1975.
Lithograph on paper. Copy H.C. Current print run of 75 copies.
Work published in the catalogue raisonné of the artist's graphic work.
Signed and justified by the artist.
Provenance: Private collection Antonio Orzaez (Madrid, 1933-2021).
Measurements: 65,5 x 50,5 cm.
This set belongs to the personal collection of Antoni Orzaez, the artists' photographer. His work in the Sala Gaspar, led him to capture and know the life of many essential creators for the history of it. In many cases his closeness with them turned into friendship, as for example with Calder, who personally gave him many works, dedicating them to him with great affection. The son of a painter and sculptor, Calder did not move towards the world of art until adulthood. After studying engineering, he moved to New York in 1923, where he began his artistic production and joined the Art Students League. During the 1920s he worked as an illustrator for the press and held his first painting exhibition in 1926 at The Artist's Gallery in New York. Before the end of the year he began his trip to Europe, which enabled him to meet the great figures of the day, such as Miró, Duchamp and Mondrian. It was the latter's work that had the most decisive influence on him, prompting him to join the Abstraction-Creation group, whose aim was to promote a non-objective art. During the following years he worked between Paris and New York and exhibited regularly in both cities. In 1931 he made his first mobile, a sculpture which, in his own words, was intended to give movement to Mondrian's work. A year earlier he had participated for the first time in an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. During the Second World War Calder reached his artistic maturity, creating works that made him famous all over the world, demonstrating that he was capable of synthesising and sublimating the theories of the avant-gardists of the beginning of the century. His works achieved an enthusiastic popular acclaim rarely achieved by abstract art. Calder is one of the most renowned artists of the 20th century, with work in every major collection in the world. From the MoMA in New York, where one of his sculptures decorates the main staircase, to the UNESCO headquarters in Paris.