Calder's Rare Wooden Mobile Nears $20M Christie's Auction

A rare wooden mobile by Alexander Calder titled Painted Wood (1943), part of his Constellation series, is set to be auctioned at Christie’s 20th Century Evening Sale with an unprecedented estimate of $15–20 million, the highest ever for a Calder work. The piece, nearly seven feet tall and comprising eleven suspended wooden forms, was originally gifted to architect Henrique Mindlin and has been in the collection of prominent Latin American art collector Patricia Phelps de Cisneros for over three decades. Painted Wood was featured in Calder’s landmark 1943 retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art, which helped define his career and earned him recognition as the youngest artist to have a solo show there. Calder’s shift to wood in the early 1940s was influenced by wartime aluminum shortages, leading to innovative works that balance abstract and figurative forms. While the current record for a Calder mobile stands at $25.9 million, Painted Wood’s historical significance and scale make it a highly anticipated highlight of the sale, coinciding with renewed institutional interest in Calder’s legacy. Christie’s and experts hail the work as a monumental example of Calder’s mastery of kinetic sculpture, with expectations it could set a new auction record for the artist.