Wright Auction

Best known as the architect of the United Nations in New York and the Los Angeles Opera House, Oscar Nitzchke was what Artforum once described as an artist “whose activities constitute an important bridge between individual and collective energy.” Nitzchke counted among his collaborators such luminaries as Auguste Perret, Jean (Hans) Arp, Sophie Taeuber-Arp, Theo van Doesburg, and, of course, Alexander Calder. The pair worked together in the 1930s, when Calder developed a sculpture series — which where never realized — as part of an African habitat that Nitzchke was designing for New York's Bronx Zoo.

Calder and Nitzchke would remain close friends for decades, sharing family vacations in Europe and America. Nitzchke's granddaughter Eleonore recalled one such visit especially fondly: “I remember I asked my parents to buy me a camera, but unfortunately they did not hear my wishes. Otherwise, I would have taken pictures of our great vacation in Sache, with Calder and the party we had together. We were kids, we were friends, with no other sense than kids have, playing and loving each other, having a good time. There was no demanding social circuit, no public relations, no art market then, like there is now. It is a paradise lost.” (Eleonore Nitzschke Interview, Ragazine)

This brooch from the collection of Nitzchke is exemplary of Calder's ability to transform ordinary material into functional sculptural works of exceptional beauty. The spiral was a frequent motif for Calder as an embodiment of how a simple line can become a universal symbol of cosmic organization, whether as an abstraction or in the form of the sun, shell, or body part.