It takes a big-hearted, ambitious biographer to take on the life of a big-hearted, ambitious artist. Alexander Calder has found a perfect match in Jed Perl.

... [Perl] does not generally seek to prove or explain or argue for the deeper seriousness of Calder’s sculptures, and perhaps he should not need to do so. Instead, he allows the lavish illustrations to speak for themselves while he charts Calder’s life through a well-researched and engaging narrative rich in anecdotes. Like most biographers, Mr. Perl is fully on the side of his subject and quick to leap to Calder’s defense when he feels that a critic like Greenberg, or a dealer like Pierre Matisse, has behaved badly toward his protagonist.

Perl’s narrative makes Calder come alive.

Perl completes his zestfully expert two-book biography of exuberantly radical sculptor Calder in a volume every bit as scintillating and substantial as the first.

...the influence of Calder’s contemporaries shouldn’t undercut the originality of the artist’s vision. That is the argument Jed Perl makes in his exhaustive two-volume biography, Calder.

... exhaustively researched and profusely illustrated.

... masterfully researched.

Perl draws out the depth of character and personality that was Calder and spins it around in step with Calder’s inventiveness.

... magisterial.

This second volume takes advantage of the same kind of open access to records, bringing readers particularly into the relaxed and surprisingly welcoming private life Calder and his wife Louisa shared for decades with friends and family members in homes like the one they had in Roxbury, Connecticut. Perl has combed through every scrap of documentation connected with Calder (this second volume has over 40 pages of often discursive notes), and he time and again combines the best elements to produce wonderful set-details.