Partners in Palette

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Alexander Calder first met Joan Miró when he arranged a studio visit in Paris with the Catalan genius in 1928. Although their personalities and backgrounds ranged wildly--one an American of great size and presence, the other more petite and taciturn--the two shared an uncommon kinship over the following fifty years. While living an ocean apart, they each discovered very similar and entirely unprecedented artistic visions. These two great artists continue to influence future generations. We are also delighted to present Richard Roblin and Sen-1, two significant and highly celebrated painters continuing to challenge the way we experience life and art today.

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Alexander Calder was born on July 22, 1898, in Lawnton, Pennsylvania, into a family of artists. In 1919, he received an engineering degree from Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, New Jersey. Calder attended the Art Students League, New York, from 1923 to 1926, studying briefly with Thomas Hart Benton and John Sloan. As a freelance artist for the National Police Gazette in 1925, he spent two weeks sketching at the circus; his fascination with the subject dates from this time. He also made his first sculpture in 1925; the following year he made several constructions of animals and figures with wire and wood.

Calder's first exhibition of paintings took place in 1926 at the Artist's Gallery, New York. Later that year, he went to Paris and attended the Académie de la grande chaumière. In Paris, he met Stanley William Hayter, exhibited at the 1926 Salon des Indépendants, and in 1927 began giving performances of his miniature circus. The first show of his wire animals and caricature portraits was held at the Weyhe Gallery, New York, in 1928. That same year, he met Joan Miró, who became a lifelong friend. Subsequently, Calder divided his time between France and the United States. In 1929, the Galerie Billiet gave him his first solo show in Paris. Around this time, he also encountered James Johnson Sweeney, future Guggenheim Museum director, who would become a close friend and supporter. Calder began to experiment with abstract sculpture and in 1931 and 1932 introduced moving parts into his work. These moving sculptures were called "mobiles"; the stationary constructions were to be named "stabiles." He exhibited with the group Abstraction-Création (Abstraction Creation, 1931–36) in Paris in 1933. In 1943, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, gave him a solo exhibition.

During the 1950s, Calder traveled widely and executed "gongs" (sound mobiles developed around 1948) and "towers" (wall mobiles developed around 1951). He won the Grand Prize for sculpture at the 1952 Venice Biennale. He exhibited, along with other pioneers of Kinetic art including Yaacov Agam and Jean Tinguely, in Le mouvement (Movement) at the Galerie Denise René, Paris, in 1955. Late in the decade, the artist worked extensively with gouache; from this period, he executed numerous major public commissions. In 1964–65, the Guggenheim Museum presented a Calder retrospective. He began the "totems" in 1966 and the "animobiles" in 1971; both are variations on the standing mobile. A Calder exhibition was held at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (1976), and the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao (2003). Calder died on November 11, 1976, in New York.

Joan Miró Ferra was born April 20, 1893, in Barcelona. He attended business school in Barcelona at the age of fourteen and then shifted his attention to studying art at La Lonja’s Escuela Superior de Artes Industriales y Belles Artes in the same city. He took a position as a clerk, upon finishing three years of art school, but then abandoned business after suffering a nervous breakdown. He then continued his art studies at Francesc Gali’s Escola d’Art in Barcelona from 1912 to 1915. Jose Dalmau, a dealer who recognized talent in the young artist, gave Miró his first solo show at his gallery in Barcelona in 1918. As Miró emerged onto the international art scene, he began to associate with other influential early modernists. In 1917, he met the painter Francis Picabia and in 1920, upon his first trip to Paris, he was introduced to Pablo Picasso. Miró’s work at this time showed a wide range of influences, including the bright colors of the Fauves, the broken forms of cubism, and the powerful, flat two-dimensionality of Catalan folk art and Romanesque church frescoes of his native Spain. But under the influence of the surrealist poets and painters he associated with in the early 1920’s his style matured and he began to draw on memory, fantasy, and the irrational to create works of art with twisted organic shapes and odd geometric constructions that were visual representations of surrealist poetry. Dalmau organized Miró’s first solo exhibition in Paris in 1921. Additionally, his work was included in the famous Salon d’Autumn of 1923. In 1925 he took part in the First Surrealist Exhibition and, along with Dali, was recognized as one of the leading Spanish Surrealist painters. Miró also experimented in a wide array of other media, concentrating on etchings and lithographs for several years in the 1950s and also working in watercolor, pastel, collage, ceramics, and paint on copper and masonite. In 1954, he received the Grand Prize for Graphic Work at the Venice Biennale and in 1958 he was given a Guggenheim International Award for the two large ceramic murals he executed for the UNESCO building in Paris. Miró died in Majorca, Spain, on December 25, 1983.
Richard Roblin was born in Saskatchewan, Canada in 1940. Inspired by the vast prairie sky, Roblin continues to pursue his vision of luminous clarity. As a young boy living in Southern Ontario, Richard developed a passion for drawing and was happiest when he was sketching in nature. The dynamic relationships in nature subsequently guided his intellect towards architecture and design. Roblin's love of drawing and painting received early recognition and acknowledgement when his art was purchased by the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts when he was 21. His journey as an artist has taken him throughout North America, Europe, the Orient, and India. He has imbibed the teachings of many cultures. His passion for creative activity extends through his practice of architecture, design, sculpture and painting. Roblin's art works are exhibited and collected widely through commercial galleries and museums including the MOMA in New York. From 1987-1995, Roblin lived in the Berkshires painting for exhibitions in New York. He also maintained a studio outside East Hampton, Long Island where he produced works for his first New York solo exhibition.

As Roblin exclaims, "I love to paint. The nature of my painting activities is to engage with the magical resonances of colour and form. I play with the dynamics of luminosity to reveal the sense of joy which inspires it. My painting process is to begin by drawing with colour a line or a shape. Everything that emerges is defined by that primary impulse which is like the leap of a dancer onto life's stage. Suddenly, the canvas begins to light up. Each canvas is an open door, a dance circle, a symphony of breath breathing its life through the action of the artist. Each artist, an understudy of creation itself, re-enacts the birth of the universe." Always a pioneer of consciousness and a technical innovator in the realms of art, Roblin enthusiastically continues his explorations in his new home and studio on Vancouver Island.
George's life as a street artist started at the age of 12, when he and his crew "graffiti bombed" buildings and NYC subway trains in the '80s.

Graffiti in New York City has had a local, countrywide, and international influence. Originating in the New York City Subway and spreading beyond, it was regarded by the city’s authorities as an act of vandalism, while some view it as an art form. Along with other young dreamers in the early Hip Hop movement, George felt a strong desire to represent himself and his community in the face of poverty, oppression and often death. Leaving his "SEN-1" tag large and proud around the city was a dangerously playful way for George to develop his artistic skills and create a legacy along with his infamous IBM crew (Incredible Bombing Masters). SEN-1 became well known for his artful dialogue with other graf writers on the Number 1 train and was ‘WANTED’ for marking up neighbourhood buildings with spray paint. Koch’s zero tolerance policy and Reaganomics of the late 80s ended the era of subway train graffiti, but not before SEN-1 had gained global recognition as a Master of Graffiti. Despite his fame, George's artistic career took a backseat to the challenges of daily life as a young, afro-Caribbean adult raising a family on the Upper West Side in the 90s. George continued to consult however, for other creatives in his community which attracted the attention of fashion designer Rachel Roy. SEN-1 has provided patterns for four of Rachel’s collections and in 2009 his artwork was commissioned for 7 of MACY’S main avenue windows in NYC. SEN’s private collectors include the likes of First Lady Michelle Obama, to musicians like Fabolous and Rita Ora. SEN-1 has also co-produced and co-hosted TV show, “The Message” with M1 (of Dead Prez fame) in 2016 and they collaborated with Joey Bada$$ to deliver a positive message to a misguided generation through graffiti. He also appeared with one of Jay-Z’s early Hip Hop producers SKI BEATZ on major UK reality TV show, “The Only Way is Essex”.