Alexander Stirling Calder

Sculptor
American, (1870–1945)

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A. Stirling Calder was born into Philadelphia's most famous family of sculptors. He was the son of the Scottish born sculptor Alexander Milne Calder and father of sculptor Alexander Calder who invented mobile sculptures. A. Stirling Calder, the oldest of six boys, began his artistic training at sixteen at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where he studied with Thomas Eakins. In 1890 he went to Paris to study. After two years he returned to Philadelphia and began teaching modeling at the Pennsylvania Academy. After Paris and Philadelphia, he moved his family to Arizona, California (Pasadena and San Francisco), Philadelphia (again) and three places in New York.