Alexander Calder

I've been sorting my bookshelves and turned up this gem the other day: “Calder at Home” with photographs and text by Pedro E. Guerrero (Stewart, Tabori & Chang). That would be Alexander “Sandy” Calder, the American artist who is best known for his kinetic steel sculptures. As an impoverished artist in Paris in the 1920s, he designed toys, made wire portraits and, famously, created a traveling toy circus that he stashed in a series of suitcases. He was also handy around the house and, according to Guerrero, liked to make kitchen utensils whenever his wife Louisa needed something.

I've been sorting my bookshelves and turned up this gem the other day: “Calder at Home” with photographs and text by Pedro E. Guerrero (Stewart, Tabori & Chang). That would be Alexander “Sandy” Calder, the American artist who is best known for his kinetic steel sculptures. As an impoverished artist in Paris in the 1920s, he designed toys, made wire portraits and, famously, created a traveling toy circus that he stashed in a series of suitcases. He was also handy around the house and, according to Guerrero, liked to make kitchen utensils whenever his wife Louisa needed something.

Just about everyone loves Alexander Calder (1898-1976). Casual observers enjoy the playful weightlessness of his mobiles, a genre of sculpture he may not have invented but owns so completely that it's almost impossible for another artist to make a mobile and not be compared, unfavorably, to Calder. Art specialists, who usually pooh-pooh such popular sentiments, also admire the elegant economy of Calder's streamlined forms and his graceful spatial arrangements. At L&M Arts, a fantastic two-gallery exhibition (and a large, outdoor sculpture)

Just about everyone loves Alexander Calder (1898-1976). Casual observers enjoy the playful weightlessness of his mobiles, a genre of sculpture he may not have invented but owns so completely that it's almost impossible for another artist to make a mobile and not be compared, unfavorably, to Calder. Art specialists, who usually pooh-pooh such popular sentiments, also admire the elegant economy of Calder's streamlined forms and his graceful spatial arrangements. At L&M Arts, a fantastic two-gallery exhibition (and a large, outdoor sculpture)

Sunday "L.A. Lifeguards" / 6 p.m. TBS "Baywatch" star Mike Newman narrates this look at the real-life inspiration for the long-running series. Among L.A. County's elite corps of 600 seasonal lifeguards are eager rookies and 32-year veteran Mel Solberg, as well as husband-and-wife lifeguards and lifeguards with second jobs: an ER physician, a history teacher and a performance artist.

Thirty feet below an onramp to the New Jersey Turnpike, Victoria Leacock balanced atop a mound of charred and twisted steel. Out of the millions of tons of World Trade Center debris, this pile at a temporary storage yard is Leacock's personal crusade. "Is this OK?" she wondered, aiming her camera to document every wavy piece. "I'm walking on art."

Too much often is made of biography in attempts to pinpoint origins of an artist's work, but in the case of Alexander Calder, known for his mobiles, "stabiles" and kinetic works made of wire, sheet metal and other materials, tracing biography feels like watching destiny unfold.

In terms of legacy, Calder is the Hemingway of the art world. His work is so popular, accessible and deceptively easy that the most au courant scholars tend to pass it over, and other artists don't always own up to its influence. "It's almost like Calder is invisible because he's so ubiquitous," says L.A.-based artist Jason Meadows, who used to walk by one of his massive public sculptures as a student at the Art Institute of Chicago. "When I was getting educated into the world of fine art, Abstract Expressionist painters were really hot and I got really charmed by Pop Art. Calder wasn't someone you would think about.

An Alexander Calder mobile with a $1.4-million price tag has been stolen from a Manhattan gallery, authorities said today. The 30-pound mobile, "White Flag," was stolen at 6 p.m. Sunday from Perls Galleries on the Upper East Side, police said. The gallery owner, Klaus Perls, discovered the burglary Monday morning. Perls, 78, was Calder's exclusive agent for 22 years, until the artist died in 1976. Police said the burglars entered the six-story building through a skylight.

A planned Philadelphia-based museum dedicated to the playful sculptures and mobiles of native son Alexander Calder will not open. The 35,000-square-foot Tadao Ando-designed museum was to open along Ben Franklin Parkway, across from the Rodin Museum and near both the Philadelphia Museum of Art and a proposed site for the Barnes Foundation's Impressionists-heavy art collection.

In terms of legacy, Calder is the Hemingway of the art world. His work is so popular, accessible and deceptively easy that the most au courant scholars tend to pass it over, and other artists don't always own up to its influence. "It's almost like Calder is invisible because he's so ubiquitous," says L.A.-based artist Jason Meadows, who used to walk by one of his massive public sculptures as a student at the Art Institute of Chicago. "When I was getting educated into the world of fine art, Abstract Expressionist painters were really hot and I got really charmed by Pop Art. Calder wasn't someone you would think about.

A reliable way to add a little dazzle to classics -- a white shirt, little black dress, T-shirt and blazer -- is to punch them up with conversation-piece jewelry. This month, Club Monaco offers some affordable contenders: six eye-catching necklaces inspired by artist Alexander Calder.

PHILADELPHIA -- Think of Alexander Calder, and the first thing to come to mind probably would be the suspended abstract sculptures that silently orbit above the heads of museumgoers around the world. Though best known for those enormous yet graceful creations his friend and fellow artist Marcel Duchamp coined as "mobiles," Calder also created approximately 1,800 one-of-a-kind pieces of handmade jewelry throughout his artistic career.

Too much often is made of biography in attempts to pinpoint origins of an artist's work, but in the case of Alexander Calder, known for his mobiles, "stabiles" and kinetic works made of wire, sheet metal and other materials, tracing biography feels like watching destiny unfold.

Fans of American architecture will gather later this month at downtown's Millennium Biltmore for a conference dedicated to Frank Lloyd Wright's work in Los Angeles. The five-day event features tours, lectures and a gala dinner to celebrate one of the world's most influential architects. Likely overlooked in all of that, though, will be a man whose presence in Wright's story makes him a real-life counterpart to Woody Allen's cinematic chameleon, Leonard Zelig. His name is Pedro E.

A planned Philadelphia-based museum dedicated to the playful sculptures and mobiles of native son Alexander Calder will not open. The 35,000-square-foot Tadao Ando-designed museum was to open along Ben Franklin Parkway, across from the Rodin Museum and near both the Philadelphia Museum of Art and a proposed site for the Barnes Foundation's Impressionists-heavy art collection.

Playful functional objects created by Philadelphia-born sculptor and graphics artist Alexander Calder for his family and friends have gone on display in the United States for the first time at the Cooper-Hewitt Museum in New York. Calder, who died in 1976, was known for his witty moving mobiles and grounded stabiles, and wit and whimsy are very much a part of the objects on display.

Fans of American architecture will gather later this month at downtown's Millennium Biltmore for a conference dedicated to Frank Lloyd Wright's work in Los Angeles. The five-day event features tours, lectures and a gala dinner to celebrate one of the world's most influential architects. Likely overlooked in all of that, though, will be a man whose presence in Wright's story makes him a real-life counterpart to Woody Allen's cinematic chameleon, Leonard Zelig. His name is Pedro E.

For almost a half-century, the American sculptor Alexander Calder and the Spanish painter Joan Miro looked on each other as good friends. When apart, as they often were, they sometimes exchanged a letter or postcard of greeting. "A good smack on the butt for you," wrote Calder in French in 1934. "A hug, kisses, and see you soon, you big stud," wrote Miro in Spanish in 1945. They liked to embellish the postcards. Miro, for example, added underarm hair to the portrait of a Spanish dancer.

Alexander Calder's family never dreamed that one day his mobiles, stabiles and wire sculptures would be displayed on the Las Vegas Strip, but they aren't disappointed. "I think it's great that the exhibit's next to a craps table and down the hall from a wedding chapel," said Alexander Rower, Calder's grandson and director of the Calder Foundation. "Art can be intimidating. Calder's work belongs to everybody, not just art historians."