ALEXANDER CALDER (1898-1976)

Parallel to his sculptural practice of mobiles and stabiles, Calder also produced gouaches on paper as early as the 1940s. The medium of gouache allowed for more immediacy as compared to his large-scale works in sheet metal, providing the opportunity to freely experiment. Though two-dimensional rather than three-dimensional, Calder’s gouaches relates to his sculptures in terms of their angularity and kinetics, the forms seeming to hover above the paper, pulsating with potential energy. Drawing from both the natural and the subconscious, the shapes in Loch Ness seem at once foreign and distinctly recognizable – forms suggestive of a sun and a moon hover in the yellow sky above a sea of amoebas in the blue water below, their sinuous forms referencing the mythical water beast suggested in the title. Deceivingly unassuming in composition, Calder’s gouaches reveal the artist’s mastery of line, solid balance of composition and predilection for primary colors that the artist employed to create these spontaneous impressions.