Calder's Circus

From the rear cover of this 171 page book: "Alexander Calder, creator of the mobile and the stabile, occupies a unique position as the sculptor generally considered America's greatest, and the American artist with the widest international reputation today. His fame, his career as a sculptor, began almost fifty years ago with his miniature Circus, now on extended loan to the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. Begun in the mid-twenties with just a few figures and gradually enlarged to encompass dozens of people and animals, the Circus is generally considered the germ from which grew the whole range of Calder's later production: the toys; wire, wood, and bronze sculpture; jewelry; drawings; gouaches; and even the great mobiles, stabiles, and the recent 'animobiles'. [This book] is divided into three parts: the Circus years; color stills from the Pathe film of a Circus performance; and the Circus figures themselves, especially photographed for this book by Marvin Schwartz and displayed with related pieces in all the media used by Calder. The illustrations are accompanied by quotations from Calder's remarks about circus things. An appendix includes detailed captions for each of the 115 illustrations, a chronology of events in Calder's career that relate to the Circus, and an annotated bibliography."