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36 Souscoupes in Alaska, 1969 Signed and dated 'Calder 69' lower right Gouache and ink on paper 43 x 29 1 / 2 in, 109.2 x 74.8 cm Provenance Perls Galleries, New York Acquired from the above by Arthur and Anita Kahn in 1969 Exhibitions New York, Perls Galleries, Alexander Calder: Bronze Sculptures of 1944, 1969 Literature New York, Perls Galleries, Alexander Calder: Bronze Sculptures of 1944, 1969 This work is registered in the archives of the Calder Foundation, New York, under application no. A06211. ALEXANDER CALDER 1898-1976 Evoking his famous mobiles and stabiles of astronomical forms, Souscoupes in Alaska reveals the abstracted style that Alexander Calder had developed by the 1960s. Living and working in Paris during the 1920s and 1930s, Calder forged alongside his close friends Hans Arp and Joan Miró a new vernacular of form based on nature. Echoing Miró's simplified language of representation, Calder's poetic abstract shapes acted as visual metonyms for celestial bodies. Calder was fascinated by the universe and eighteenth century models of planetary systems from a young age. In 1922, while sailing off the Guatemalan coast, Calder awoke one day to witness the sun and the moon at opposite ends of the horizon, a striking vision that he referenced throughout his career. 'The basis of everything for me is the universe', Calder explained in 1962, 'the simplest forms in the universe are the sphere and the circle.' Created in the same year that man landed on the moon, Souscoupes in Alaska is filled with cosmic forms that relate to the sun and stars. In this lyrical painting Calder's characteristic floating spheres evoke a complex sense of space and perception of the world as if seen from the heavens. The unrelenting tide of energy that passes across the paper is evocative of the underlying forces in nature.