Alexander Calder’s stabiles are a crucial element of the artist’s distinctive visual language. Fellow artist Jean Arp is credited with first using the term “stabile” to distinguish between Calder’s static sculptures and his kinetic sculptures, the “mobiles.” Though Calder’s hanging mobiles are some of his most iconic works, his giant sculptures act as landmarks in cities around the globe, speaking to the proliferation and continued public interest in Calder’s captivating forms.

This work is a maquette of the much larger Jerusalem Stabile, the last monumental sculpture that Calder ever made. The artist constructed a few maquettes – this piece being a unique work, not an editioned series – which were submitted to metal fabricators to construct the final large-scale installation. Calder worked closely with the fabricators to ensure the realization of his vision, though he did not live to see its completion. The manager of the fabrication company, Jacques Bazillon, explained Calder’s insistence that the sculpture be constructed without mechanical devices: “Thus, the finished work recalled in its execution the feeling of craftsmanship, and ‘the scars of workmanship’ remained visible” (“Calder: The Jerusalem Stabile”, The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, 1980). The 72-foot-long, monumental piece was installed on Mt. Herzl in Jerusalem in 1977 and was commissioned as part of a larger initiative to improve the quality of life in Jerusalem, to serve as a symbol of modernity and to raise cultural awareness.