Calder

The Frank Eidlitz Collection contains the 16mm and 35mm film work of graphic designer and visual artist Frank Eidlitz (1923–1997), predominantly made during a Winston Churchill Fellowship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge in 1966. The collection contains Eidlitz’s experiments with light, movement and technology in film.

This film shows the 1966 construction of Alexander Calder’s ‘La Grande Voile’ (The Big Sail), a monumental sculpture installed in McDermott Court at MIT in Cambridge.

Trained as a mechanical engineer, and born into a renowned family of artists, Calder began making kinetic artworks in the 1930s. Known as ‘mobiles’ the sculptures had moveable parts, were light and delicate in form, and often included a mechanical motor. By the late 1950s, Calder had begun making ‘stabiles’, which retained the sense of lightness and dynamism of his smaller works, but were formed on a monumental scale and stable on the ground. ‘La Grande Voile’ is emblematic of this period of his work.

‘La Grande Voile’ was a gift to MIT by Eugene and Margaret McDermott, who were arts patrons and benefactors to the institute. The sculpture was fabricated in France and shipped to MIT in parts; made up of five panels bolted together, the sculpture is 40 feet tall and comprised of 33 tons of painted steel.

The film features Calder overseeing the installation of ‘La Grande Voile’ in the courtyard. Footage of the artist wearing a hard hat is overlaid with footage of workers piecing the sculpture together. The film emphasises the interplay between the curved lines and angles of the steel sheets, and the balance between the monolithic weight and its delicate legs.

The film is accompanied by a recording of Bing Crosby’s ‘Dinah’, which is then spliced together with ‘Little Sir Echo’.