Grandeur-Immense (Plan for a Large Mobile) from Anatole Jakovsky's "23 Gravures

Paris: aux Éditions G. Orobitz et Cie. Printed at Imprimeur Tanneur in Paris by Decros et Colas, 1935. Drypoint in black on laid paper. (12 5/8 x 9 5/8 inches). Edition of 50: 20 Arabic numbered copies intended for sale, and 30 Roman numbered copies, which were reserved for the artists and collaborators and not sold. This print is unnumbered but signed by Calder in pencil in the lower right-hand corner Unnumbered signed drypoint impression in black on laid paper. Drypoint from an illustrated book with twelve etchings (one with aquatint and drypoint), five drypoints, three engravings (one with drypoint), two lithographs, and one woodcut (Plate, Folio 7). Provenance: Julien Levy Gallery stamp on verso, a taste-making New York Surrealist gallery open from 1932-1949.

A rarely found signed Alexander Calder print from a limited edition of 50 describing the movement of a large mobile sculpture, with a stamp on its verso from the Julien Levy Gallery. We find only two examples that have appeared on the market in the last twenty-two years.

Alexander Calder's (1898-1976) Grandeur-Immense drypoint comes from a 1935 book edited by the art critic and poet Anatole Jakovsky (1909-1983) titled 23 Gravures. Calder, an integral figure in twentieth-century modernism, was an American artist from Pennsylvania who lived in Paris in the 1920s and 30s, and was known for his abstract kinetic sculptures. Calder's work is represented in prominent corporate and public collections, including a monumental work in the US Senate office building. Grandeur-Immense is from a schematic drawing for one of Calder's mobiles, which are typically constructed out of large, curvilinear sheets of red, black, and white steel which move slowly on their axes. The ideal movement of these steel pieces is described here variously as "tourne imperceptiblement," "tres lente," and "presque aussi lente," depending on the part of the sculpture. This drypoint is an insightful point of embarkation to both the conceptual and the mechanical aspects of Calder's work. Anatole Jakovsky (1909-1983) was born in what is now Moldova, but he came to Paris in 1932 and quickly became friends with the "Mouvement-Création" group around Auguste Herbin. Jakovsky dedicated early critical writing to artists such as Arp, Braque, Calder, Delaunay, and Picasso. He edited and wrote a foreword to 23 Gravures and later established a museum for folk art in Nice, France, called the Musée International d'Art Naïf Anatole Jakovsky. This edifying Calder print carries a Julien Levy Gallery stamp on its verso. Julien Levy Gallery was a long-running (1932-1949) New York gallery at 602 Madison Avenue dedicated to Surrealism. Julien Levy (1906-1981) was an influential and eclectic collector as well as a good friend to many of the principal avant-garde artists of the period. Calder's exhibition Mobiles / Abstract Sculptures ran at Julien Levy Gallery from May 12 to June 11 1932. Ingrid Schaffner describes Calder's exhibition in her Levy biography: "Alexander Calder's mobiles, which Levy was the first to exhibit in New York, twisted and turned in response to invisible currents of air, their movements seemingly directed by pure chance."

Ingrid Schaffner, Julien Levy: Portrait of an Art Gallery, 1998, pp. 98.