Two collectors donate 48 works by Alexander Calder to Seattle Art Museum

The Seattle Art Museum (SAM) announced yesterday the arrival of a donation of 48 major works by Alexander Calder (Lawnton, 1898 - Philadelphia, 1976) from the collection of Jon and Kim Shirley. The gift from the Shirley Family Calder Collection is supported by a $10 million endowment and an annual financial commitment from the Shirleys to support Calder-related exhibitions and research. The Seattle Art Museum thus suddenly becomes home to one of the most important Calder nuclei in the world.

The Shirleys’ collection is one of the most significant collections of Calder’s work in private hands. Their donation to SAM will be the centerpiece of an ongoing series of annual exhibitions and programs. In November, SAM will present an inaugural exhibition featuring all 48 works from the collection, offering an in-depth look at Calder’s life and work. The exhibition and related programming are supported by a $1 million donation from the Shirleys, who have also pledged annual support of $250,000 to $500,000 to support future programs, events, and research related to Calder. Annual exhibitions in the future will focus on Calder, touching on his diverse cultural influences and his profound impact on modern and contemporary art.

Many of the ideas Calder explored, from the unconventional possibilities of repurposed or found materials to the potential of art to create an experience for viewers through movement, variable composition, performance and sound, proved prescient, inspiring subsequent generations of artists.

“Calder is an artist whose work is seemingly ubiquitous,” said Amada Cruz, director and CEO of the Seattle Art Museum. "We have lost sight of the enormous artistic innovations for which he was responsible, from pioneering wire sculpture to the invention of furniture, and the enormous impact he had on artists of the 20th and 21st centuries. Jon and Kim Shirley’s extraordinary generosity allows us to explore the many facets of this creative genius."

The museum will dedicate a large space to Calder, presented as ideal for displaying both Calder’s monumental work and his more intimate pieces. Visitors will find exhibitions and programs that will delve into the many facets of Calder’s artistic practice and offer new perspectives on his work. Following the inaugural exhibition, a survey planned for 2024 will investigate his impact and legacy in a group show featuring leading contemporary artists from around the world. Additional exhibitions will reexamine his work through the lens of historical periods in the artist’s career.

“I first fell in love with Calder at a young age, creating a passion that has only grown with time,” said Jon Shirley. “From the moment I bought my first work 35 years ago, I treasured the experience of living with Calder and have built my collection in a very intentional way ever since. I visited the seminal Calder exhibition at the National Gallery in 1998, and soon after that I decided to build a collection of his work that was really museum-worthy. Kim and I are really happy to have found the Seattle Art Museum a permanent home for our collection.”

The Shirleys have a long and distinguished history of philanthropic support for the Seattle Art Museum. Both Jon and Kim Shirley currently serve on the museum’s board of trustees, and Jon Shirley was chairman of the board from 2000 to 2008. Shirley and his late wife Mary provided the donation that led to the creation of the museum’s Olympic Sculpture Park in 2007, a nine-acre park that is now Seattle’s largest green space. Shirley also made a donation to fund the park’s operations, ensuring that the park itself, with monumental sculptures by Richard Serra, Louise Bourgeois, Teresita Fernandez and Calder, would be permanently free for all to enjoy. Jon and Mary Shirley also provided financial support for the museum to acquire Calder’s The Eagle (1971), a sculpture that has become an emblem of the city.

Jon and Mary Shirley also provided an endowment for the modern and contemporary art curatorial position now held by Catharina Manchanda. “Jon’s generosity and civic spirit were evident in his visionary leadership in helping to create Olympic Sculpture Park, and now the deeply generous gift of his Calder collection will transform SAM and expand Seattle’s cultural profile,” said Charlie Wright, SAM trustee . “The collection is a beautiful example of the rigor, passion and intelligence he brings to collecting art. And it is our fantastic good fortune that Jon and Kim’s ultimate goal is to share great works of art with the broader community.”

The Shirleys’ collection includes 48 works of art (one consisting of seven lithographs) and 85 publications, making it one of the most significant collections of Calder works in private hands. Renowned for the depth and breadth of its holdings, it centers on a group of spectacular hanging and standing mobiles dating from the 1930s and 1970s. Among the most important works in the collection are Gamma (1947) and Bougainvillier (1947), made at the height of Calder’s career in the late 1940s. The collection also includes Fish (1942), a rare example of Calder’s mobile fish series made during World War II, when metal was in short supply. The work consists of a painted rod and wire structure that houses glass fragments in a myriad of colors and found materials such as metal objects and fragments of porcelain. Other key works in the collection include Vache (ca. 1930), Little Yellow Panel (ca. 1936), Constellation with Red Knife (1943), Dispersed Objects with Brass Gong (1948), Toile d’araignée (1965) and Red Curly Tail (1970), each exemplifying different vocabularies of Calder’s vast oeuvre. In addition to the collection, the Shirleys will donate their private library of books and publications on Calder to the museum.

“Building a truly institution-worthy treasure trove of Calder’s work after the artist’s death has required an impressive amount of dedication, research and focus,” said Alexander S. C. Rower, president of the Calder Foundation and grandson of the artist. "The Shirleys have done just that over the past several decades, amassing an extensive survey of my grandfather’s work punctuated by more than 30 hanging and standing mobiles. Their collection captures the dynamic energy of Calder’s entire trajectory, from his early figurative works in wire through the monumental sculptures of his last period. In addition to donating this magnificent collection to the Seattle Art Museum, the Shirleys have provided it with dedicated exhibition space and ongoing funding that will ensure its success long into the future. This will allow visitors to cultivate new perspectives on Calder’s art in an evolving way, something no other museum has achieved.

Image: Alexander Calder, Red Curly Tail (1970; painted steel and stainless steel; Seattle, Seattle Art Museum, Jon and Mary Shirley donation)

Two collectors donate 48 works by Alexander Calder to Seattle Art Museum

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