Verbal Description Transcript:

Yellow Stalk with Stone dates from 1953. It’s made of sheet metal, wire, stone, and paint. It measures just over 4 feet high by 3 feet 4 inches wide by just over a foot deep. It is an abstract standing mobile. A thick yellow painted wire supports the various elements of this sculpture. This yellow wire is a tall, straight stalk at the center of the composition; at its base, it has been bent into a V-shaped foot resting on the floor. At its upper end it acts as the central support for the mobile elements of the sculpture. Extending at a downward angle from the top of the stalk is a stiff double length of wire; at its end, it encircles a wedge-shaped lump of rough gray stone. On either side of the central stalk and stone, two collections of descending wires extend outwards. Attached to each is an arrangement of fine connecting wires; and attached to these slender wires are 11 painted metal discs. The discs are of different sizes: the largest is royal blue; others are brick red, saffron yellow and black. As is usual with Calder’s sculptures, the composition is not symmetrical: there are 8 painted discs on one side of the stalk and only 3 on the other. The wires are arranged so that some of the discs are pointing upwards, others downwards and others sideways. The wires are connected to each other by little metal rings, so they can move freely if there is a breeze. The whole sculpture can tremble on its slender stalk, and all the wires can shake and twist.