Although Alexander Calder grew up surrounded by artists, he decided to study engineering, from which he graduated with a diploma in 1919. In 1923 Calder joined the New York Art Students League, where he took drawing lessons. He worked for the National Police Gazette as a press artist. From 1925 he came into contact with the circus. Calder was so fascinated with this environment that he realized he had found the motifs and subject matter for his work. He created drawings which he showed at this first exhibition in 1926 together with other paintings at The Artists Gallery in New York. Clader soon began to create wire sculptures based on his drawings and thus made a decisive step for his further artistic developement. In 1927 Alexander Calder caused a stir with his animals made of iron wire and corks, which he turned into mechanical toys. Gradually, these pieces developed into an entire miniature circus. In 1930 the artist went to Paris, where he met Marcel Duchamp and Hans Arp. Duchamp called Alexander Calder's motor-powered sculptures 'Mobiles', Arp coined the term 'Stabiles' for the immobile objects. In 1934 Calder moved to the USA. During the 1930s he produced monumental sculptures made of heavy metal plates alongside numerous Mobiles and Stabiles. He made the first of his many post-war trips to France in 1946, where he settled again in 1954. The Guggenheim Museum in New York and the Musée National d'Art Moderne in Paris hosted a retrospective in 1964/65. At the same time Calder also designed stage settings, mainly for theaters in Paris. The artist received numerous prizes, including the Grand Prize for sculpture at the Venice Biennale and the Carnegie prize in Pittsburgh.