Alexander Calder was born in Lawnton, Pennsylvania, on July 22, 1898. In 1915, Calder decided to study mechanical engineering. He moved then to New York and enrolled at the Art Students' League. Calder became fascinated with the circus, sketching a number of studies on circus themes and sculpting a number of wire frame circus animals and carnival performers. Upon graduating,

Calder moved to Paris to continue his studies in art. He took his wire model circus with him and gave elaborately improvised shows recreating the performance of a real circus. Soon, his "Cirque Calder" became popular with the Parisian avant-garde. While in Paris, Calder met and became friends with a number of avant-garde artists, including Joan Miró, Jean Arp and Marcel Duchamp. A visit to Piet Mondrian's studio in 1930 "shocked" him into embracing abstract art. He maintained a sharp eye with respect to the engineering balance of the sculptures and utilized these to develop the kinetic sculptures Duchamp would ultimately dub as "'mobiles".

Calder died on November 11, 1976, shortly following the opening of another major retrospective show at the Whitney Museum in New York.