The Makings of Modernity
When Alexander Calder (1898-1976) moved back from France to his native US in 1933, his vision coloured by the post-Cubist and De Stijl iconography he witnessed in Paris, it was just in time to cement a relationship with a newly formed gallery in Manhattan. The Museum of Modern Art had opened its doors in November 1929, initially occupying the upper stories of an office building on Fifth Avenue â it would shift locations several more times before 1939, when its famous Goodwin and Stone headquarters was completed. In its inaugural year, the gallery displayed a combination of work by modern European masters and the new Precisionist-era American painters, from Charles Demuth to Georgia OâKeeffe. Calder, who had taken inspiration from Piet Mondrian and Joan Miró, seemed to synthesise the styles and schools the new museum wanted to champion.