The 5 Largest Mobiles Worldwide That I’m Aware Of

.125 by Alexander Calder
In collaboration with SOM
At the International Arrival Building at JFK Airport

The 5 largest mobile sculptures worldwide that I’m aware of – all by Alexander Calder:

1. White Cascade (1976) at the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia – 100 feet / 30 meters
2. Untitled (1977) at the National Gallery of Art – 76 feet / 23 meters
3. Eléments Démontables (1975) in the collection of the Calder Foundation – 47 feet / 14.5 meters
4. .125 (1957) at JFK Airport New York City – 45 feet /13.5 meters
5. Mountains and Clouds (1986) at the Hart Senate Office Building – 42.5 feet / 13 meters

The largest mobile that I’ve made to date measures 33ft (10m).

In 1962, George Rickey (the other major twentieth-century artist to make movement a central interest in sculpture next to Calder) wrote: “The great size of recent pieces carried out by metalworkers has resulted in Gargantuan designs beyond [Calder’s] control, loss of scale, and immobility; gross execution in very thick material substitutes for skillful analysis of engineering problems and economy of means. In his thirty-foot hanging mobile London, made especially for the Tate by welders in Paris from a small maquette and not assembled till the exhibition, the plates and rods are far heavier than necessary, and it hangs motionless and red beneath the lofty vault.”

“People often make a big deal about Calder’s training as an engineer, but in reality his mechanics are pretty rudimentary. Surprisingly for a history major, Rickey was a master engineer.” – Tim Prentice

There’s an incomplete List of Alexander Calder’s Public Works. You can help expand it if you know of additional ones.

The Calder Foundation’s new website also has an interactive map of Calder’s sculptures around the world.

The largest mobile sculpture to ever appear at auction, measuring 25 feet (7.6 meters), is Blue Moon (1962) by Alexander Calder, which sold at Sotheby’s in New York City on May 15th 2024 for $14.4 million:

Eléments Démontables was suspended in the atrium of the Ruffin Building in Wichita, Kansas from 1975 until 2024, and is now in the collection of the Calder Foundation. An article “Giant Mobile Flies at Fourth” from The Wichita Eagle on March 9th 1975 when the mobile was originally installed: