Calder by Matter

Cahiers d’Art announces the launch of Calder by Matter, a publication organised in collaboration with the Calder Foundation. Calder by Matter is the first Cahiers d’Art publication since the relaunch of the Cahiers d’Art revue in October 2012.

Photographer and graphic designer Herbert Matter, a close friend of Alexander Calder, had the privilege of photographing the artist’s sculptures at different stages of their realization and capturing Calder at work in his studios and in his Roxbury, Connecticut, home. Calder by Matter offers a new perspective on the sculptor’s life and work, presenting over 300 photographs of the artist and his family, many of which are previously unpublished. Available in a Standard Edition as well as a Collector’s Edition (limited edition of 250 copies), Calder by Matter includes original essays by esteemed art critic and Calder biographer Jed Perl, Calder Foundation President and Calder grandson Alexander S. C. Rower (editor of the volume), and Matter student and colleague John T. Hill (designer of the volume).

On the occasion of the book launch, Cahiers d’Art will present an exhibition of over thirty works by Calder, including mobiles, stabiles, bronzes, decorative objects, and gouaches, as well as a selection of photographs by Matter.

Alexander Calder (1898–1976), whose illustrious career spanned much of the 20th century, is the most acclaimed and influential sculptor of our time. Born in a family of celebrated, though more classically trained artists, Calder utilized his innovative genius to profoundly change the course of modern art. He began by developing a new method of sculpting: by bending and twisting wire, he essentially “drew” three-dimensional figures in space. He is renowned for the invention of the mobile, whose suspended, abstract elements move and balance in changing harmony. Calder also devoted himself to making outdoor sculpture on a grand scale from bolted sheet steel. Today, these stately titans grace public plazas in cities throughout the world.

Though Calder was undoubtedly American, no serious discussion of his life and work could take place without mention of his adopted home, France, which had a tremendous impact on him. Calder arrived in Paris in the summer of 1926 and he became a recognizable figure among the Parisian avant-garde with performances of Cirque Calder and his invention of wire sculpture. Though Calder and his wife, Louisa, moved to the States in 1933, two decades later they returned to France and established their primary residence in Saché, where Calder built a large studio in 1962. Calder’s early experiences in Paris undoubtedly laid the foundation for the internationally renowned artist that he would become, and French culture continued to have a strong influence on both his art and the way he lived his life. That influence continues today in the Calder family and the many projects of the Calder Foundation.

Herbert Matter (1907–1984) is one of the most highly regarded and influential of the mid- century modern design masters. Born in Switzerland, Matter pursued photography in the late twenties and early thirties in Paris while studying under Fernand Léger and Amédée Ozenfant. Inspired by Man Ray, László Moholy-Nagy, and other modernists, he mastered the experimental photographic techniques of photogram, collage, and montage. Matter worked briefly for Le Corbusier, A. M. Cassandre, and the type house of Deberny et Peignot, and he later went on to win national acclaim for his Swiss travel posters. Directly after emigrating from Switzerland to the United States in 1936—where over the course of five decades he worked as a head designer for Knoll, a professor at Yale University, and a design consultant for the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, among others—Matter began to produce what is now known to be the most important photographic record of Calder’s life and work.