Galérie Maeght, Paris
Galerie Beyeler, Basel
Weintraub Gallery, New York
Christie's, London, June 2, 2001, lot 83
Acquired by the present owner from the above sale

Paris, Galérie Maeght, Calder: Crags and Critters, January - February 1975, n.p., illustrated in color
Basel, Galerie Beyeler, America-America, October - December 1976, cat. no. 9, p. 28, illustrated
Hannover, Galerie Brusberg, Alexander Calder: Mobiles, Stabiles, Grafik und Critters, December 1980 - March 1981
London, Waddington Galleries; London, Mayor Gallery, Calder, April 1981
Zurich, Thomas Ammann Fine Art, Thirty Three Women, June - September 2003, p. 13, illustrated in color

This work is in very good and sound condition overall. There is light evidence of handling including very minor abrasions visible under close inspection.
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.

Alexander Calder is one of the most celebrated and revered sculptors of the Post-War era. The present work encompasses both the vivacious humor and the formalist elements that have defined Alexander Calder's substantial contribution to American art of the 20th Century. At the time of Critter innomable's making in 1974, Calder could count for himself, amongst other accolades: solo exhibitions in the world's major museums, a host of international cities with his monumental sculptures on their public grounds, a representative for American art at the Venice Bienniale, and a generation of artists who would name him as a primary influence.

Disciplined, curious, and clever, Calder suspended lively constellations, ingeniously freeing the state of sculpture from its static plinth. Energized by the Surrealist work of his Parisian contemporaries, Calder began sculpting with wires and metal in the 1930s to create his radical mobiles, which took on organic and biomorphic forms that continued throughout his career, the influence of which is evident in the present work, Critter innommable from 1974. Though stabiles of a massive scale were Calder's primary focus at this time, Calder also managed to mount what would be one of his last exhibits of human-scaled work in October 1974 at Perls Gallery. Crags and Critters was a surreal exhibition of stabiles and standing mobiles, with an impulse𒐪 toward playful abstraction and organic forms.

This show plunged the viewer into the distinctive universe of Alexander Calder. Many of these characters were🍬 presented standing on three legs, and some had other unusual features, including extra arms. The exhibition included anthropomorphic “critters” and the mountainous “crags” with delica🃏tely balanced elements weaving through the peaks and valleys of the sculptures.

The Critters, a series of which this work belongs, showed Calder returning to the figuration and indeed sense of caricature that had been such a popular feature in his early career – particularly considering the success of his miniature circus, the Cirque Calder from the 1920s. In that complex work, a number of hand-held and hand-activated puppets performed various feats, many of them accomplished through the control and intervention of Calder, the ultimate ringmaster. Calder's Cirque, which is now in the collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art, presented wryly sketched figures on a small scale. In his Critters, that humanoid content has been reprised on a larger platform. While the Crags presented an environment for these wilderness creatures, the Critters themse▨lves often approximate human scale, making them all the more engaging an♓d adding an immediacy to the reaction of the viewers confronted with these figures.

The present Critter innommable is made of a single piece o﷽f painted metal, cut and bent at angles to form the three-legged figure. This representational, almost 🔯other-worldly character holds its two arms parallel with outstretched hands and nearly shrugging shoulders. The three muscular legs that counterbalance the figure are outfitted with what appear to be moderately high-heeled shoes. Although it is cut from a single sheet of metal, Calder has managed to instill a dynamic sense of motion in the figure reminiscent of a standing mobile.

Though it is traditionally Calder’s early work that is associated with Surrealism, the Critters recall coinciding interests of artists such as Joan Miró, Hans Arp, Max Ernst and Yves Tanguy. The planar forms of the sheet metal evoke a familiar biomorphism in the art historical trajectory. Li🎉ke the earliest of Calder’s anthropomorphic stabiles, here the artist shows his indirect engagement with the abstractions and the automatist leanings of the Parisian Surrealists.

Early in the 1970s, Calder began producing works that appear to be a synthesis between the stabiles, the mobiles, and the animal subjects of his early career: the 'animobiles' (Calder's wife, Louisa's contraction of Animaux-mobiles–mobile animals). The base of these works, conceived as a stabile, is given a discreetly animal form. 'Critters', the last of the series of works undertaken by Calder, are fantastic, many armed figures, or big red devils with forked tails, but more often than not they are silhouettes with a less obvious identity. All of them were cut out of large plates of sheet metal according to Calder's drawings. "I draw on the plate and then it’s cut out for me by machine. I don't much like using machines–you've got to have habits of security" (M. Gibson, Calder, New York 1988, p. 88).

Ironic and dynamic, formalist and erudite, all at once, this Critter shows Calder at the peak of his career, building upon a lifetime of references and sources – creating art that is both homage and mockery of the natural world and its phenomenaꦐ.