Calder, François Premier: the Saché mobiles at Hauser & Wirth
A five-metre mobile shown for the first time in 72 years, another never seen in Europe: Calder's French years, free, on rue François-Ier.
in short 19 October – 19 December 2026 · Hauser & Wirth Paris, 26 bis rue François Ier, 75008 Paris · Free
published on · by the fugace team · lire en français
Photo · Agnès Varda
In 1953, after twenty years away, Calder came back to live in France: first in Aix-en-Provence, then in Saché, in the Touraine (Loire Valley), in a 17th-century stone house called François Premier. Hauser & Wirth, which occupies a hôtel particulier (a grand private mansion) on the street of the same name, rue François-Ier, now devotes a major exhibition to those two years.
The showpiece is Les Granettes (1953): a standing mobile five metres wide, all red, white and black polygons, not shown to the public for 72 years. Next to it, The Putney Mobile (1954), interlaced wires hanging several metres above the floor, on show in Europe for the first time.
Around them, inks and gouaches from the period: abstract landscapes, figures in monochrome hatching.
It's free, with no booking, Tuesday to Saturday 10am–6pm, by Metro Franklin D. Roosevelt or Alma-Marceau. You have until 19 December.
