Perls Galleries, New York
Private Collection, Paris (acquired from the above in 1963)
The Hanover Gallery, London
Private Collection, New York
Mitchell-Innes & Nash, Inc., New York
Acquired by the present owner from the above 

Little Rock, Arkansas Arts Center, The Works of Alexander Calder, March - April 1962, n.p., illustrated

“Calder Mobiles to be On Display at Arts Center Beginning Thursday,” The Arkansas Gazette, February 25, 1962, illustrated

This work is in very good condition. As is to be expected with a work of this age and type, there are scattered signs of wear on the rods and points of connection on the hanging elements, as well as a creamy patina of age to the white elements. Upon close inspection, there is also an overall pattern of minute losses on the black base and red disc related to an inherent gradual deterioration of the paint surface over time, with tiny specks of rust in some pinpoint areas of loss.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Among the most prodigious artists of the Twentieth Century as the architect of an entirely original sculptural aesthetic, Alexander Calder created works that continue to inspire and astound. His instantly-recognizable hanging mobiles and stabiles, so profoundly specific to his art that they have become synonymous with his name, engage us both aesthetically and physically. They introduce themselves into our lives and our environments, at once organically interacting with their surrounding atmosphere and persisting as singularly beautiful objects. Impressive in scale and demonstrating that perfect sense of intangible balance and continual movement that defines the artist’s best works, The Lookout from 1957 exemplifies this powerful dual presence and holds a place among Calder’s most successful standing mobiles, the hybrid form created from the stabiles and hanging mobiles.

The brilliant color composition of the present work of sheer white, black and startling red, as well as the specific composition of the horizontal and vertical axes of the white discs, is powerfully evocative of the paintings of Piet Mondrian, and immediately calls to mind the famous anecdote regarding the genesis of Calder’s suspended forms. Calder’s compendium of mobiles and stabiles were the result of an aesthetic epiphany during a 1930 visit to Mondrian’s studio where he was inspired to discover a three-dimensional art form that would embody the reductive palette and spatial inventiveness of the great artist’s paintings and bring these modernist elements into the viewer’s experience and space. The aerial complexities of his mobiles would follow and the architectonic stabiles would be placed on the gallery floors so as to commingle with the viewer. Ultimately, the two would inspire the standing mobiles that captured both the stationary elegance of the stabiles with the choreography and movement of the mobiles, all of which is so playfully and gracefully on display in The Lookout. Furthermore, the elegantly cut-out apertu💮re in the black base of the current sculpture provides a lightness of form to the structure and increased sense of spatial complexity as both our perspective and the play of light and shadow pass through it.

Balanced by the dynamic juxtaposition of delicately suspended mobile parts and the beautifully elongated black base, the present work is a sophisticated testament to Calder’s technical skill, imaginative genius and talent for organic composition. At once solid and sinuous, the black form that grounds The Lookout perfectly supports the arrangement of hovering disks poised delicately above it. Evolving out of the thin wire that supports them, the six white discs of varying sizes, superbly countered by the larger red weight, oscillate up and down in an apparent state of alertness that strikes a fitting parallel with the title of The Lookout. Their movement is partially governed by the precise engineering of their metal architecture, but of course ultimately their course is determined by the elements. As Jean-Paul Sartre explained: “Calder establishes a general career of movement and then he abandons it; it is the time of day, the sunshine, the heat, the wind which will determine each individual dance.” (Jean-Paul Sartre in Exh. Cat., Paris, Galerie Louis Carré, Alexander Calder, 1946) The Lookout perfectly captures ♏Sartre’s apt analysis of Calder🌞’s work; the prescribed horizontality and verticality of the floating discs – Calder’s “general career of movement” – is immediately abandoned with the slightest breath of wind or flux in the surrounding environment.

The ceaselessly active white discs in The Lookout are contrapuntal to the singular, large and vibrant red disc, oriented downward and situated alone at the opposite end of the wire support.  The brilliant red in the midst of dark velvety black and bright white pulls our focus from the start. We are drawn to its intensity and its individuality, and its presence once again testifies to Calder’s ♎talent for transforming the monochrome abstractions of Mondrian into sculptural forms that freely insertꩲ themselves into our lives whilst retaining their artistic and aesthetic autonomy.