The Eagle
Date1971
Model by
Alexander Calder
American, 1898 - 1976
Since the Olympic Sculpture Park opened in 2007, The Eagle has come to personify the park and is already a beloved landmark within the city of Seattle.
Born in a family of celebrated, though more classically trained artists, Calder utilized his innovative genius to profoundly change the course of modern art. In the 1920s–30s, while in Paris, he developed two distinctive genres of sculpture: mobiles, or abstract sculptures that move, and stabiles, which are stationary. Created at a time when Calder was recognized as one of the world's greatest sculptors, The Eagle reveals the artist's distinctive combination of pragmatism and poetry. Architectural in its construction and scale, the monumental stabile’s curving forms and sharp points are simultaneously weightless, energetic, and abstract.
Calder was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and moved to New York in 1923, attending the Art Students League. In 1926 he traveled to Paris, where he went on to become a pioneering figure of the international avant-garde. Calder retrospectives have been presented at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 1943, the Guggenheim Museum, New York, in 1964, and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, in 1976. Calder was awarded the Gold Medal for Sculpture by the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the National Institute of Arts and Letters in 1971, the year he created The Eagle.
Funding for the conservation of this artwork was generously provided through a grant from the Bank of America Art Conservation Project.
Born in a family of celebrated, though more classically trained artists, Calder utilized his innovative genius to profoundly change the course of modern art. In the 1920s–30s, while in Paris, he developed two distinctive genres of sculpture: mobiles, or abstract sculptures that move, and stabiles, which are stationary. Created at a time when Calder was recognized as one of the world's greatest sculptors, The Eagle reveals the artist's distinctive combination of pragmatism and poetry. Architectural in its construction and scale, the monumental stabile’s curving forms and sharp points are simultaneously weightless, energetic, and abstract.
Calder was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and moved to New York in 1923, attending the Art Students League. In 1926 he traveled to Paris, where he went on to become a pioneering figure of the international avant-garde. Calder retrospectives have been presented at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 1943, the Guggenheim Museum, New York, in 1964, and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, in 1976. Calder was awarded the Gold Medal for Sculpture by the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the National Institute of Arts and Letters in 1971, the year he created The Eagle.
Funding for the conservation of this artwork was generously provided through a grant from the Bank of America Art Conservation Project.
Object number2000.69
ProvenanceCommissioned from the artist by Fort Worth National Bank, Texas; Bank One, Fort Worth, Texas; Loutex, Fort Worth, Texas; private collection; purchased by Seattle Art Museum with funds from Jon and Mary Shirley, Seattle, Washington, 2000
Photo CreditPhoto: Benjamin Benschneider
Not extractions, but abstractions. Abstractions that are like nothing in life except in their manner of reacting.
Alexander Calder
Credit LineGift of Jon and Mary Shirley, in honor of the 75th Anniversary of the Seattle Art Museum
Dimensions465 x 390 x 390 in. (1181.1 x 990.6 x 990.6 cm); estimated weight 6 tons
MediumPainted steel
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