Verbal Description Transcript:

This is a group of three black and white photographs dating from 1947, 1957 and 1952. The photographs are all rectangular – two in portrait format, one in landscape. Their longer sides are just over or just under a foot in length. The photographs are hung side by side on a curved wall. They all show Calder alongside his own sculptures. Calder is a solidly built white man in middle age. He has short, thick hair that appears to be gray or white. One photograph shows him standing in the corner of a white-walled room with a dark floor. He is wearing dark trousers and a thick checkered shirt. He’s seen in left profile, looking down as he handles an abstract standing mobile. Behind him hangs a mobile made up of small discs on wires titled Gamma that is on view elsewhere in the gallery. Calder and the mobile cast shadows on the wall behind them. To the right of the image is a standing mobile: it’s fully abstract in form, comprising pointed shard-like forms, pierced with numerous holes. In another photograph, Calder’s head is shown against a black background. He is facing outward at bottom right of the image. Calder’s hair is perhaps whiter here, and a little tousled, and he has bushy eyebrows. He is looking upwards and towards his right. Above and occupying the rest of the space is a mobile that appears in the photograph as pale colored discs. In the final image – the one in landscape format – Calder is shown from the waist up. Again, the background is black. He is facing forward, to left of center. He is frowning as he lifts his hands in front of him to rearrange the elements of a hanging mobile. His hands are slightly blurred with the motion. The mobile consists of light-colored discs on wires. Calder’s face and hands are strongly lit, so he and the discs of the mobile stand out strongly against the dark background.