Alexander Calder Quotes

• If you can imagine a thing, conjure it up in space then you can make it... The universe is real but you can't see it. You have to imagine it. Then you can be realistic about reproducing it.

  Alexander Calder

  Real, Space, Imagine

  Interview with Katherine Kuh, 1962.

  107 Copy quote

• Above all, art should be fun.

  Alexander Calder

  Art, Fun, Scrapbooking

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• When everything goes right a mobile is a piece of poetry that dances with the joy of life and surprise!

  Alexander Calder

  Joy, Pieces, Surprise

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• Just as one can compose colors, or forms, so one can compose motions.

  Alexander Calder

  Art, Color, Form

  Eric Zafran, Alexander Calder, Elizabeth Mankin Kornhauser, Cynthia E. Roman, Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art (2000). “Calder in Connecticut”, Rizzoli Intl Pubns

  101 Copy quote

• The universe is real, but you can't see it. You have to imagine it.

  Alexander Calder

  Real, Imagine, Universe

  Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago, Ill.), Alexander Calder (1974). “Alexander Calder: a retrospective exhibition. Work from 1925 to 1974”

  74 Copy quote

• To most people who look at a mobile, it's no more than a series of flat objects that move. To a few, though, it may be poetry.

  Alexander Calder

  Art, Moving, People

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• Why must art be static? You look at an abstraction, sculptured or painted, an entirely exciting arrangement of planes, spheres, nuclei, entirely without meaning. It would be perfect but it is always still. The next step in sculpture is motion.

  Alexander Calder

  Art, Perfect, Next Steps

  74 Copy quote

• About my method of work: first it’s the state of mind—Elation (joy).

  Alexander Calder

  Joy, Mind, Elation

  56 Copy quote

• To an engineer, good enough means perfect. With an artist, there's no such thing as perfect.

  Alexander Calder

  Art, Mean, Perfect

  82 Copy quote

• The first inspiration I ever had was the cosmos, the planetary system.

  Alexander Calder

  Inspiration, Cosmos, Firsts

  36 Copy quote

• I love red so much, I almost want to paint everything red.

  Alexander Calder

  Color, Want, Red

  44 Copy quote

• The basis of everything I do is the universe.

  Alexander Calder

  Bases, Universe

  43 Copy quote

• My fan mail is enormous. Everyone is under six.

  Alexander Calder

  Fans, Mail, Six

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• My whole theory about art is the disparity that exists between form, masses and movement.

  Alexander Calder

  Art, Movement, Form

  Interview with Katherine Kuh, 1962.

  52 Copy quote

• The trouble with a lot of artists today is that they have too much technique and equipment. They don't know what to do with it all. If you cut down on it, you can work more strongly within narrower limits.

  Alexander Calder

  Success, Cutting, Artist

  60 Copy quote

• The simplest forms in the universe are the sphere and the circle. I represent them by disks and then I vary them... spheres of different sizes, densities, colours and volumes, floating in space, traversing clouds, sprays of water, currents of air, viscosities and odours - of the greatest variety and disparity.

  Alexander Calder

  Clouds, Air, Circles

  "The Artist's Voice: Talks with Seventeen Artists, Harper & Row, New York and Evanston, Illinois". Interview with Katherine Kuh, 1962.

  39 Copy quote

• You see nature and then you try to emulate it.

  Alexander Calder

  Nature, Trying, Emulate

  "The Artist's Voice: Talks with Seventeen Artists, Harper & Row, New York and Evanston, Illinois". Interview with Katherine Kuh, 1962.

  30 Copy quote

• When an artist explains what he is doing, he usually has to do one of two things: either scrap what he has explained, or make his work fit in with the explanation.

  Alexander Calder

  Artist, Two, Fit

  Alexander Calder, A. S. C. Rower, Ugo Mulas, Pier Giovanni Castagnoli, Palazzo delle esposizioni (Rome, Italy) (2009). “Calder: Sculptor of Air”, 24 Ore Cultura

  48 Copy quote

• My fingers always seem busier than my mind.

  Alexander Calder

  Art, Mind, Fingers

  31 Copy quote

• The next step in sculpture is motion.

  Alexander Calder

  Next Steps, Sculpture, Next

  32 Copy quote

• The sense of motion in painting and sculpture has long been considered as one of the primary elements of the composition.

  Alexander Calder

  Long, Sculpture, Elements

  "Statement from Modern Painting and Sculpture". August, 1933.

  48 Copy quote

• A mobile is an abstract sculpture made chiefly out of sheet metal, steel rods, wire and wood. Some or all of these elements move, propelled by electric motors, wind, water or by hand.

  Alexander Calder

  Moving, Electric Motors, Hands

  37 Copy quote

• That others grasp what I have in mind seems unessential, at least as long as they have something else in theirs.

  Alexander Calder

  Long, Mind, Seems

  Alexander Calder, A. S. C. Rower, Ugo Mulas, Pier Giovanni Castagnoli, Palazzo delle esposizioni (Rome, Italy) (2009). “Calder: Sculptor of Air”, 24 Ore Cultura

  35 Copy quote

• The underlying sense of form in my work has been the system of the Universe, or part thereof. For that is a rather large model to work from.

  Alexander Calder

  Art, Form, Models

  Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago, Ill.), Alexander Calder (1974). “Alexander Calder: a retrospective exhibition. Work from 1925 to 1974”

  33 Copy quote

• I have been making wire jewelry - and think I'll really do something with it, eventually.

  Alexander Calder

  Thinking, Wire, Jewelry

  6 Copy quote

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