How Alexander Calder Became America’s Most Beloved Sculptor

Jed Perl | Smithsonian.com | 19th September 2017

By 1930, Calder had begun to be noticed, at least by other artists. Late in that year he visited Mondrian in his Paris studio. “Calder later observed, “It was Mondrian who made me abstract”. Calder was beginning to contemplate a new kind of abstract sculpture—the sculptures that would emerge at the Galerie Percier in Paris scarcely six months later and establish him as one of the most radical artists of his time.”