Bougainvillier

1947
Alexander Calder, 1898-1976

Sheet metal, wire, rod, lead, and paint, 78 x 82 x 54 in., Promised gift of Jon and Mary Shirley, photo: Nicholas Shirley, Brightwood Photos

One of the most elegant and commanding sculptures in the exhibition, this work, although titled with the French word for the bougainvillea plant, is considered to be nonobjective. Calder’s choices for titles, whether in English or French, do not indicate how to interpret his works. He named his sculptures after they were created, noting, “Sometimes it’s the whole thing that suggests a title to me, sometimes it’s just a detail.”

The year this sculpture was made, Bougainvillier premiered in a New York exhibition. It has since been included in major exhibitions, including Calder’s retrospective at the Tate Gallery in London in 1962. As Jean-Paul Sartre wrote of Calder’s mobiles, “The forces at work are too numerous and complicated for any human mind, even that of their creator, to be able to foresee all their combinations.”