Les Fleurs, Composition No. 2 by Alexander Calder, 1898-1976

Alexander Calder, 1898-1976
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Les Fleurs, Composition No. 2

Original lithograph in colours. 1974. Signed in pencil. Numbered (66) from the edition of 125 (plus c.25 proofs). Printed at the studio of Arte Adrien Maeght, Paris 1974.

Excellent impression with brilliant fresh colours. On pale cream wove arches-type paper. Excellent condition. The full sheet. Image worked to the full sheet size. Sheet: 25 3/8 x 19 5/8ins (645x500mm)

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Calder's lithograph 'Les Fleurs no 2' underlines how closely his work in the three dimensions of sculpture and the two dimensions of painting and printmaking were always interrelated. Calder's first mobile sculptures date from around 1930, but he had in fact had the idea for them a few years earlier. Although from a family of artists he had at first trained as an engineer. In 1926 he abandoned that training to devote his attention to art. He travelled to Paris in 1926/27 and it was there that he saw his first constructivist art, and also met Miró, Leger and Arp. Their introduction to the ideas of surrealism led him to try making sculptures using bent wire, mostly of animal subjects.

Then about 1930 he came into contact with Mondrian and the ideas of the De Stijl painters. Their use of flat areas of primary colour linked by a 'framework' of black bands inspired him to translate this concept into sculpture. It was at this point that he had the inspired idea of creating this sculpture by using freeform flat metal disks painted in primary colour linked by wire arms so that the shapes were held in balance but free to move and rotate in relationship to each other. As they changed their positional relationship so the form and balance of the sculpture changed, the planes of colour receding and projecting in a constantly changing random progression. Thus Calder's great contribution to the imagery of 20th century art was born.

Although he painted and drew such themes throughout his life it was in the years from the mid 1950's onwards that he became really enthusiastic about lithography as a medium, especially because of the intensity and luminescence of colour that it made possible.