Although his mother was a painter and his father a sculptor, Alexander Calder didn’t head towards the Art world until he was already an adult. It was on board a boat where he witnessed the sun coming up while the moon was setting. That vision finally woke the sensitivity in him that his family had been stimulating for many years.

His artistic activity was initiated in New York, the city where he produced his first sculptures in the late 1920s. He also held his first exhibitions there, and they were followed by many others in Europe. This allowed him to meet most of the important personages of the time, such as Joan Miró, Marcel Duchamp or Piet Mondrian. It was precisely Mondrian’s work that influenced him most intensely, encouraging him to join the Abstraction-Creation group that was determined to stimulate non-objective Art.

1931 was to become a milestone in his career, as this was the year he created his first mobile. That was how Duchamp himself defined it when he admired the abstract work with flat shapes connected by wires. Its lightness made the slightest breath of air put it into motion.