Alexander Calder

Yellow Moon

1966

In 1931 Alexander Calder created his first kinetic objects, or mobiles, moved by electric motors. He soon realized that his sculptures could move by themselves. Responding to air currents, Yellow Moon shifts spontaneously. As Calder once said, “a mobile is a piece of poetry that dances with the joy of life and surprise.” Crafted entirely by the artist’s hand, Yellow Moon evokes outer space, with stars and orbiting planets: the yellow moon counterbalances the red circle, possibly symbolizing the heat-emanating sun. This may be inspired by a moving vision of a bright sunrise and a vanishing full moon, on opposite horizons, that Calder witnessed as a merchant marine off Guatemala in 1922.

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Artist Alexander Calder
Original Title Croissant jaune
Date 1966
Medium Painted sheet metal, metal rods and steel wire
Dimensions 162.6 x 243.8 x 177.8 cm
Credit line Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York, Hannelore B. and Rudolph B. Schulhof Collection, bequest of Hannelore B. Schulhof, 2012
Accession 2012.33
Collection Schulhof Collection
Type Sculpture

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Other artworks

Alexander Calder

Mobile

ca. 1934

Not on View