NEW YORK, NY.- Christie’s will present a time-capsule collection of sculptures by Alexander Calder (1898-1976), created before and during his three-month visit to India in 1955, as a highlight of the forthcoming Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Auction on 10 May 2016 at Christie’s, Rockefeller Plaza, New York. The works capture Calder’s special relationship with the Sarabhai family, who hosted the artist for three weeks at their home in Ahmedabad, and testify not only to Calder’s ability at the height of his powers, but also to the extraordinary cultural dialogue fostered by the architect Gira Sarabhai and her family following the Indian Independence Act of 1947. Coming to auction for the first time, the works are a focal point of 20th Century at Christie’s, a series of sales that takes place from Tuesday 3 May – Friday 13 May in New York. A selection of works are on view at Christie’s, King Street, London until 17 April alongside more highlights from the Post-War and Contemporary Art, Impressionist and Modern, and American Art auctions.

Francis Outred, Chairman and International Head of Post-War and Contemporary Art, EMERI: ‘This outstanding group of works not only represent an untold chapter in the story of Calder's development but also capture a moment of fascinating cultural exchange, borne of the Sarabhai family's international vision at a critical turning point in India's history. This pioneering approach to patronage brought some of the twentieth century’s most celebrated artists, designers and architects to the region, including Isamu Noguchi, Robert Rauschenburg, Charles and Ray Eames and Le Corbusier; whose complete redesign of the city of Chandigarh is a landmark in building design and urban planning. As one of the first artists to truly take advantage of commercial air travel, Calder’s journey to India breathed new life into his practice, giving rise to some of his most dynamic and evocative works. In their symphony of form, colour and motion, they encapsulate the full breadth of Calder's ground-breaking contribution to sculpture. We are excited to share this story in the Post-War and Contemporary Evening Auction.’

‘In 1954 I received a letter from a young Indian woman who wrote me mentioning Jean Hélion, my good friend. She was Gira Sarabhai, youngest of eight children of a large wealthy family in Ahmedabad, which is somewhere halfway between Bombay and Delhi. She offered Louisa and me a trip to India, if I’d consent to make some objects for her when there. I immediately replied yes’. (A. Calder, An Autobiography with Pictures, New York 1966, pp. 231-32).

The Sarabhais were a leading Jain business dynasty, who played a pivotal role in India’s industrial and political development. During the 1950s, following the Indian Independence Act, their patronage and vision transformed the cultural landscape of Ahmedabad. Gira and her brother Gautam had founded the Calico Textile Museum – arguably the best of its kind in the world – and had already welcomed leading figures of the European and American avant-garde to their home, including Isamu Noguchi, Le Corbusier and John Cage. Others would soon follow, including Robert Rauschenberg, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Richard Neutra – who visited whilst designing the US Embassy for Karachi – and Charles and Ray Eames, with whom Gira and Gautam would collaborate to establish the city’s celebrated National Institute of Design, commissioned by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru.

The collection charts the development of the family’s relationship with Calder – from the intimately scaled Untitled (1954, estimate: $500,000 - 700,000), sent as a carte de visite in advance of his arrival, to the sculptures created within the verdant grounds of the Sarabhais’ estate. By the mid-1950s, spurred on by his receipt of the Grand Prize for Sculpture at the 1952 Venice Biennale, Calder had achieved an unprecedented degree of mastery over his materials. Liberated by the striking economy of means to which he had distilled his practice, Calder began to travel, visiting Beirut and Caracas as well as India between 1954 and 1955. On each occasion, operating like a nomadic artisan, he set up a temporary studio and worked intensively over a few short weeks. It was during this period that Calder, who had hitherto split his time between New York and Paris, became a truly global artist.

In India, Calder’s pursuit of visual harmony reached new heights. Each work is a masterpiece of precision engineering: a triumphant fusion of optics and kinetics. Largely created outside, his sculptures became part of the landscape, intimately united with their natural environment. Franji Pani, (1955, estimate: $2,500,000 – 3,500,000) titled after the tropical flowering tree, is a vision of delicate white blooms upon a tender stem. Sumac 17 (1955 estimate: $4,000,000 – 6,000,000) evokes the distinctive red foliage of its namesake in twenty-two individual parts: a virtuosic eulogy to the artist’s most beloved colour. Each of these works powerfully conjures its original setting: through their colour, shape and motion, they evoke the rustling breeze, the languid tropical heat, the twisted vines and scented blooms, the radiant beams of the sun and the grandeur of the Sarabhai estate.