  About the Artwork
  
  
  The literal and the whimsical meet in The X and Its Tails. Long before the minimalists talked about lifting sculpture off its pedestal, the pragmatist Alexander Calder made some sculptures hover in the air and other sculptures squat on the ground.
Son and grandson of Philadelphia sculptors, Calder had been trained as an engineer, but he drew the art world's attention in the 1920s with an animated circus built from wire figures and wooden toys.
Prompted by Mondrian's drastically simplified paintings, Calder began to experiment with free-standing abstract shapes and primary colors. Jean Arp gave them their name of "stabiles." Next, Calder cut leaflike shapes, reminiscent of Miro, from sheet metal, attached them to rods and suspended them from the celling. Marcel Duchamp obliged and called them "mobiles."
  
  
  Title
  The X and Its Tails
  
  
  Artwork Date
  1967
  
  Artist
  Alexander Calder
  
  
  
  Life Dates
  1898-1976
  
  
  
  
  Nationality
  
  
  
  Please note:
  Definitions for nationality may vary significantly, depending on chronology and world events.
  Some definitions include:
  Belonging to a people having a common origin based on a geography and/or descent and/or tradition and/or culture and/or religion and/or language, or sharing membership in a legally defined nation.
  
  
  
  American
  
  
  
  Culture
  
  
  
  Please note:
  Cultures may be defined by the language, customs, religious beliefs, social norms, and material traits of a group.
  
  
  
  
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  Medium
  Steel plate with black paint
  
  
  Dimensions
  Overall: 120 × 120 × 144 inches (304.8 cm × 304.8 cm × 3 m 65.8 cm)
  
  
  Classification
  Sculpture
  
  
  Department
  Contemporary Art after 1950
  
  
  Credit
  Gift of W. Hawkins Ferry
  
  
  
  Accession Number
  
  
  
  This unique number is assigned to an individual artwork as part of the cataloguing process at the time of entry into the permanent collection.
  Most frequently, accession numbers begin with the year in which the artwork entered the museum’s holdings.
  For example, 2008.3 refers to the year of acquisition and notes that it was the 3rd of that year. The DIA has a few additional systems—no longer assigned—that identify specific donors or museum patronage groups.
  
  
  
  67.113
  
  
  Copyright
  © 2005 Estate of Alexander Calder / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
