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Welcome to \u201cOn the Block\u201d<\/a>: ELLE Decor\u2019s series where we spotlight one spectacular piece going up for auction. Get your paddles ready. A kinetic mobile by Alexander Calder<\/a> will hit the auction block next month\u2014and it carries the highest ever estimate for the legendary American sculptor. Slated to fetch between $15 million and $20 million, Painted Wood (1943) is nearly seven feet in height and width. It will be auctioned on November 17 as a leading highlight during Christie\u2019s<\/a> 20th Century Evening Sale. The current record for a Calder piece was set during a 2014 auction,<\/a> also with Christie\u2019s, when Poisson volant (Flying Fish) sold for $25.9 million, though the estimate was $9 million to $12 million.<\/p>\n Part of Calder\u2019s early Constellation series, Painted Wood comprises 11 suspended wooden elements that take both abstract and fish-like forms. The piece made its debut in 1943 at the Museum of Modern Art,<\/a> in a sweeping exhibition that marked a turning point in the artist\u2019s career. Just 45 years old when the show opened, Calder was the youngest artist to ever be the subject of a MoMA retrospective. He later wrote to the museum\u2019s founding director Alfred Barr that, \u201cI have long felt that whatever my success has been has been greatly as a result of the show I had at the MoMA in 1943.\u201d<\/p>\n Alexander Calder\u2019s Painted Wood (1943).<\/p>\n The Pennsylvania-born artist originally gifted Painted Wood to Brazilian modernist architect Henrique Mindlin. The work later sold to philanthropist and collector Patricia Phelps de Cisneros, who has owned it for more than three decades. The upcoming sale<\/a> is the first time the piece will appear at auction.<\/p>\n \u201cAn intricate and monumental system of 11 forms in midair, Painted Wood is a singular example of Calder\u2019s mastery of the hanging mobile in wood,\u201d said Ana Maria Celis, Christie\u2019s head of post-war and contemporary art department, in a statement. \u201cWe are delighted to present it at Christie\u2019s this fall and look forward to seeing how collectors respond.\u201d<\/p>\n Calder, who died in 1976, was one of his generation\u2019s most visionary abstract artists. His works are highly prized by collectors and regularly fetch millions of dollars when they come to auction. In September, the eagerly awaited Calder Gardens<\/a> opened in Philadelphia as a tribute to the artist, designed by Herzog & de Meuron<\/a> and Piet Oudolf.<\/a> A joint collaboration between the Calder Foundation and the Barnes Foundation, the indoor-outdoor exhibition space features a rotating installation of Calder\u2019s most significant works.<\/p>\n Geoffrey Montes is an associate editor at ELLE Decor with a serious love for all things real estate and design. Before that, he worked at Architectural Digest, Galerie, and Preservation magazines, covering everything from jaw-dropping listings to world-famous architects and design events like Salone del Mobile and Homo Faber.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Welcome to \u201cOn the Block\u201d: ELLE Decor\u2019s series where we spotlight one spectacular piece going up for auction.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":87159,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[442,498,499,500,5218,66028,501,2117,156,2462,111,139,69,66027],"class_list":["post-87158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-artsdesign","tag-content-type-default","tag-contentid-df1e0034-82ff-4b68-b2ad-7b3f9b143572","tag-design","tag-displaytype-standard-article","tag-entertainment","tag-locale-us","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-shorttitle-calder-mobile-heads-to-auction-with-record-price"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87158"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87158\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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