Alexander Calder – författare

Practice counting on some of the most famous sculptures in the world!Masterpieces by world-famous sculptor Alexander Calder are used to teach quantity in this artful, read-aloud board book. One & Other Numbers accompanies artworks with a conversational and relatable text that encourages readers to notice and count various aspects of the sculptures. Calder's playful abstract shapes add to the richness of the visual arc, allowing readers to build personal connections with the art. Children will not only grow more familiar with numbers and quantity, but also with the artist and his work. This fourth title in Phaidon's "First Concepts with Fine Artists" series includes a read-aloud "about the artist" at the end.Ages 1-3

A dazzling collection of quotations from the modern American artist whose mobiles are beloved worldwideCalder-isms is a collection of fascinating, irreverent, and often profound quotations from the influential modern American sculptor Alexander Calder (1898–1976), who is most famous for his invention of what his friend Marcel Duchamp dubbed the “mobile.” Often suspended from ceilings, these sculptures feature abstract elements, frequently painted in bold colors, that move and balance in changing harmony. Calder’s art was dynamic, unconventional, and filled with vitality—qualities also displayed by his words, which combine the wisdom of a philosopher with the ingenuity of a true original. Taken from interviews, writings, and other sources, the quotations in Calder-isms offer memorable insights into Calder’s life, mind, and, above all, art.“Why must art be static? You look at an abstraction, sculptured or painted, an intensely 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.”“That visit to Mondrian gave me the shock that converted me. It was like the baby being slapped to make his lungs start working.”“[A mobile] has no utility and no meaning. It is simply beautiful. It has a great emotional effect if you understand it. Of course if it meant anything it would be easier to understand, but it would not be worthwhile.”“A title is just like the license plate on the back of a car. You use it to say which one you’re talking about.”“People think monuments should come out of the ground, never out of the ceiling, but mobiles can be monumental too.”“Bad taste always boomerangs.”

In this work, a "pakeha Maori" trader looks back to "the good old times before Governors were invented, and law, and justice, and all that". It is a construction of Maori life and customs, most notibly of "tapu" (taboo). There is also a selection of Maning's unpublished letters.