Les Renforts
Calder created a huge stabile for the Fondation Maeght sculpture garden, titled Les Renforts. A fixed, three-dimensional sculpture made in 1964 from painted sheet metal, this monumental stabile stands to an impressive height of 5m70.
Stabile: term coined by Jean Arp to contrast with the “mobile” sculptures which the American artist was also famous for. The first stabiles appeared in 1937. Calder’s mobiles were revealed a few years earlier. In 1931, Calder embarked on a series of sculptures comprising independent mobile elements driven by a motor or manually. Marcel Duchamp called them mobiles, a pun on the double meaning of the word in French: mobile and motion. A large mobile by Calder (Trois soleils jaunes, 1965) is regularly displayed in the Fondation’s Salle de la Mairie.
Alexander Calder (1898 - 1976)
The American sculptor and painter Alexander Calder was put in touch with Aimé Maeght by Christian Zervos, editor of Cahiers d’art. He began showing his mobiles in June 1950 at Galerie Maeght. It was the start of a long association and a long friendship.
