Courtesy Jerry L. Thompson, © 2008 Calder Foundation, New York, Artists Rights Society (ARS)

Alexander Calder's 1928 wire portrait of Jimmy Durante

Courtesy The Menil Collection, Houston, and Hester + Hardaway Photographers

"Two Acrobats," 1929, another wire work made during Calder's Paris sojourn.

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Visitors to “Alexander Calder: The Paris Years, 1926–1933,” at New York’s Whitney Museum of American Art from October 16 through February 15, 2009, will discover how the popular artist became a world-class sculptor during the period when he established his studio in the Montparnasse quarter of the French capital. There, Calder’s animal drawings evolved into his legendary miniature circus fashioned from such untraditional materials as yarn, cork and pipe cleaners. Using wire coat hangers and pliers, he also made remarkable portraits of, among others, the entertainer Jimmy Durante and the Spanish artist Joan Miró, as well as full-length figures, including several versions of chanteuse Josephine Baker, who was wowing French audiences at the time. By 1931 Calder had executed a series of linear abstractions that led to his mobile sculptures—limber, inventive, minimalist shapes that hang from the ceiling. Fittingly, the exhibition, with its range of Paris-era works, can be seen in March at the Centre Pompidou.

"French Translation" originally appeared in the October 2008 issue of Art+Auction. For a complete list of articles from this issue available on ARTINFO, see Art+Auction's October 2008 Table of Contents.