The Intimate World of Alexander Calder

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From Publisher's Many of Calder's sculptures and objects documented in this irresistible album are closer to decorative art than are his monumental works, yet that in no way diminishes their intrinsic interest. His painted metallic fishes, jostling with fragments of glass and ceramic shards, seem almost mythical. His ingenious, kinetic birds capture motion on the wing. Miniature mobiles, delicately balanced microcosms, prefigure the larger ones. In jewelry design, Calder was first and foremost a sculptor, delving into ancient, tribal and modern sources. Also here are wire portrait-sculptures, toys, stabiles, paintings, drawings, as well as family photographs. Marchesseau, curator of the Musee des Arts Decoratifs in Paris, organized an international exhibit on which this biographical-critical study is based. The book is an intimate, unstuffy look at an artist who merged seriousness and playfulness in ways that expunged divisions between ``high'' and ``low'' art. (Apr.)