Alexander Calder, Eilis O’Connell, Mary Newcomb

Alexander Calder (1898–1976) needs no introduction. The master of the mobile — that poignant hanging arrangement of moving elements — he also invented the stabile (stationary) and the standing mobile. There was no one who could cut and shape sheet aluminium and suspend it from wire with quite the same wit, economy and shape invention. His imagery is primarily abstract and organises flat geometrical forms in contrasting planes through space: discs and triangles balance more biomorphic shapes and are linked by bent sprung wire into a multidirectional kinetic experience of colour and light. Calder mostly used black, white and red, supplemented with blue and yellow, his forms poised and counterweighted with supreme grace and the kind of intricacy that demands utter clarity. A good show of his work is a visual and intellectual delight — and this exhibition could scarcely be bettered.

It focuses on the paintings and sculptures that Calder made in one of the most fertile periods of a productive career, 1945 to 1949.