Q 01/05

Which carmaker's Art Car series began in 1975 when Alexander Calder painted a racer bound for Le Mans?

A) Audi

B) BMW

C) Jaguar

D) Lotus

Answer · why

B) BMW

BMW got its first Art Car when Calder painted a 3.0 CSL for his friend, the French racing driver Hervé Poulain. Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein later...

Q 02/05

Before turning to art, Alexander Calder earned a 1919 degree in which subject at a New Jersey college?

A) Mechanical engineering

B) Aeronautical engineering

C) Civil engineering

D) Naval architecture

Answer · why

A) Mechanical engineering

Mechanical engineering was his choice because his artist parents did not want him to follow them into art. He later admitted he was not sure what the ...

Q 03/05

Finding motors monotonous, Alexander Calder made hanging mobiles that are moved by what instead?

A) Running water

B) Hidden magnets

C) Air currents

D) Wound springs

Answer · why

C) Air currents

Air currents, or a light touch, set his hanging sculptures turning from about 1932. With no motor fixing the pattern, the movement became far less pre...

Q 04/05

What flows through the fountain Alexander Calder built for Spain's pavilion at the 1937 world's fair?

A) Olive oil

B) Sherry

C) Seawater

D) Mercury

Answer · why

D) Mercury

Mercury runs through it in honor of Almadén, a Spanish mining region that had been besieged by Franco's troops. The fountain now sits behind glass in ...

Q 05/05

Alexander Calder's 25-foot stabile Bent Propeller stood for three decades outside which New York landmark?

A) Rockefeller Center

B) World Trade Center

C) Lincoln Center

D) Empire State Building

Answer · why

B) World Trade Center

World Trade Center towers rose beside it until September 11, 2001, when the sculpture was crushed under falling rubble. Only about 40 percent of it wa...