Little Yellow Panel

ca. 1936
Alexander Calder, 1898-1976

Sheet metal, wood, rod, wire, string, and paint, 40 3/4 × 12 × 14 in., Promised gift of Jon and Mary Shirley, photo: Nicholas Shirley, Brightwood Photos.

The natural world is an undeniable source for artists. Calder was unique in that his interests engaged negative spaces and natural forces. Mobiles, in the artist’s words, are “not extractions, but abstractions … that are like nothing in life except in their manner of reacting.”

The largest mobile in the Calder works gifted to SAM by the Shirley family, Toile d’araignée translates from the French to “spider web.” Notably, the mobile is nonobjective, titled after the fact of creation. The work commands space, and it is difficult to perceive its complex radius with only a glance. The mobile’s palette is also subtle in nature. This seminal work was included in key exhibitions in the final decades of Calder’s life, including at the Musée National d’Art Moderne, Paris (1965); Akademie der Künste, Berlin (1967); and Haus der Kunst, Munich (1975).