From an early age, “Sandy” Calder was good with his hands. Born on July 22, 1898 Sandy spent some of his childhood days in his father’s Philadelphia studio. In 1902 Stirling Calder used his son as a model for a sculpture called Man Cub. That same year, 4-year-old Sandy made his first “sculpture” – an elephant made of clay.
When Sandy was 7 and his sister Peggy was 9, their father contracted tuberculosis. Stirling and Nanette moved to Arizona, leaving the children in the care of friends. The Calders reunited a year later and settled in Pasadena, California in the fall of 1906. Sandy received his first set of tools and set up a workshop in the basement, where he used copper wire and beads to make jewelry for his sister’s dolls.
The Calder family lived in California for four years. In 1910 they returned to Philadelphia, and then adopted an almost migratory lifestyle. As Stirling Calder pursued commissions and other work opportunities, the family moved between New York and California at least once a year. They returned to New York in 1915. Sandy was ready for college by then, and enrolled in Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey, graduating four years later with a degree in mechanical engineering.
For the next three years, Sandy Calder worked at engineering and draftsman jobs in the Midwest and mid-Atlantic. It was not until 1922, at the age of 24, that he began to study art formally, with an evening class in drawing. Within a couple of months, however, he was working as a fireman in the boiler room of a steamship, sailing from New York to San Francisco via the Panama Canal. Once he reached San Francisco, Sandy headed for Washington state, where his sister and her husband lived and where he took a job at a logging camp. By the spring of 1923, the inspirational mountain vistas of Washington (and perhaps genetics) prompted Calder to quit the logging camp and concentrate on painting. He returned to New York City and began taking classes at the Art Students League, where John Sloan and Boardman Robinson were among his teachers. He supported himself by doing illustrations for the National Police Gazette and by designing toys.
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