Alexander Calder sculpture, tapestries coming to the Huntington

Visitors to the Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens will be greeted with a sculpture by Alexander Calder starting in April, the San Marino museum announced Wednesday.

Titled “Jerusalem Stabile,” the 1976 work is brick red and measures 24 feet across. It will be on loan from the Calder Foundation in New York and will be installed in a grassy corridor to the west of the new $68-million Steven S. Koblik Education and Visitor Center, which officially opens to the public April 4.

The first phase of that addition, which includes a new entrance and ticketing area as well as a coffee shop and an expanded museum store, opened Wednesday.

The Huntington announced that it also has acquired Calder’s series of six bicentennial tapestries from 1975. These colorful, modern pieces will hang in the lobby of the new Rothenberg Hall.

Other gifts to the museum in anticipation of its new phase of life include a 1964 ceramic mural by L.A. artist Doyle Lane for the courtyard of the new June and Merle Banta Education Center, and a mural dating to 1934 by the Southern California painter and architect Millard Sheets. The mural will be displayed in the new Stewart R. Smith Board Room.

The “Jerusalem Stabile” coming to the Huntington is a one-third maquette, or scale model, that Calder made in advance of a final sculpture that was installed at Mt. Herzl in Jerusalem in 1977, the year after he died. That piece was the last sculpture Calder made. Calder’s tapestries are lesser known and are among 200 produced for Calder by a French factory to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the American Revolution.

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FOR THE RECORD
3:43 p.m.: An earlier version of this article said that the “Jerusalem Stabile” coming to the Huntington Library in San Marino is the same sculpture that was installed on Mt. Herzl in Jerusalem. The version coming to the Huntington is a one-third scale model.
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“We are delighted with the addition of these bold works of 20th century American art to our new education and visitor center,” read a statement from Kevin Salatino, Hannah and Russel Kully director of the art collections at the Huntington. “Art is central to the mission here, and now, more than ever, we are foregrounding art by placing it at the entrance to the grounds. These are wonderful gifts, beautifully suited to our collecting priorities, and dovetailing perfectly with the opportunities the new complex affords.”

Twitter: @Jessicagelt