Alexander Calder's Jewellery

Alexander Calder's Jewellery

Alexander Calder's jewellery reflects his large sculptures and his famous mobiles creating unique pieces. Small sculptures to wear, never reproduced for the masses. It’s become a cliché to describe statement making jewellery as “wearable art,” but no other term quite captures the personal adornments made by Alexander Calder. His earrings, necklaces and bracelets were mini-mobiles that dangled from the wrists, necks and earlobes of celebrities.

His first creations were small accessories for her sister’s dolls, made by wire.

Growing up he refined his jewels, producing them in silver and gold, but also with poorer materials such as brass, leather cord, coloured glass pebbles, and anything else that could inspire him. As early as 1929, mostly as gifts for intimate friends and family, Calder made intricate pieces. In particular Louisa James whom he married in 1931.

Alexander Calder's works are self consciously clever, all are one-of-a-kind objects d’art. Calder had many opportunities to sign off on reproductions, and always refused. Calder made for his wife Louisa, an engagement ring. It's a simple spiral of gold wire. Calder always returned to the spiral for birthday and anniversary gifts; he seems to have adopted this late Bronze Age motif as a personal talisman.

Calder's jewellery appealed to women with avant-garde tastes who liked to make a dramatic entrance. Mary Rockefeller was said to have required a little elbow room when she wore her Calder necklace to art openings. Peggy Guggenheim boasted in her autobiography, “I am the only woman in the world who wears his enormous mobile earrings.”

Calder’s necklaces and tiaras could take up a lot of space without looking heavy. Craftsmanship is anything but mysterious; nearly every piece consists of hammered, bent or chiselled wire. Pliers marks are visible on the unpolished surfaces. Calder rarely used solder; when he needed to join strips of metal, he linked them with loops, bound them with snippets of wire or fashioned rivets. Some of his intricate-looking cuff bracelets, with wavy lines and zigzags, are little more than single pieces of twisted and flattened wire.

In both technique and design, Calder aspired to be“primitive.” Like Picasso, he had seen and collected African sculpture in Paris. Calder’s bracelets and neck collars with parallel strips of wire bear a striking resemblance to the beaded corsets worn by members of the tribes of East Africa. Calder’s sophistication in the silversmith craft grew and he soon hammered the wires into flattened forms that are the basis of his great spiral brooches, bracelet and elaborate necklaces.

He convinced us that art can be precious, and jewellery need not be.