[t.a.]Alexander Calder was born in Lawnton, Pennsylvania, July 22 1898. In 1919 he graduated in engineering at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey, from 1923 to 1926 he attended the Art Students League of New York, studying for a short period with Thomas Hart Benton and John Sloan.
In 1925, as a freelance for the National Police Gazette, go two weeks in a circus doing a series of sketches, and then develops a particular interest in that world. Also in 1925 realizes his first sculpture, and the following year, several constructions of figures and animals in wire and wood. In 1926 he holds the first exhibition of paintings artistic's Gallery in New York. In the same year went to Paris where he attended the Académie de la Grande Chaumière, meets Stanley William Hayter, exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants, and, in 1927, begins performances of his miniature circus. In 1928 takes the Weyhe Gallery in New York the first exhibition of cartoons and animals in wire, in the same year Joan Miró knows, beginning a friendship that will last for life. Following splits his time between France and the United States. In 1929 the Galerie BILLIET organizes his first solo show in Paris. A year later knows Fernand Léger, Frederick Kiesler, Theo van Doesburg and visited the studio of Piet Mondrian.
During this time running the first abstract sculptures in 1931-32 and introduces his works in moving these sculptures called mobiles, fixed it will be called Stabiles. In 1933 he exhibited in Paris with the group Abstraction-Création. In 1943 the Museum of Modern Art in New York set up a great staff. Over 50s travel a lot and realized Towers (wall mobiles) and Gongsi (mobiles sound). Won the First Prize for Sculpture at the Venice Biennale in 1952.
In the late'50s a lot gouache paints and, from this period, he received several major public commissions. In 1964-65, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York prepares a major retrospective of his work. In 1966 began the Totems and in 1971 the Animobiles, changing mobiles. In 1976 takes a major exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. The artist died in New York on November 11 of that year.