History of Art Mobiles

Suppose the definition of an art mobile is: elements suspended from a horizontal structure so that it is balanced, and where the elements or horizontal structure can move in the wind. That excludes single things that hang, but just twist. That doesn’t exclude some wind vanes and spinners. Some part of the sculpture must move in relation to other parts.

Roughly in chronological order.

The first mobiles may have been wind chimes.

Folk art whirligigs meet the definition.

The whippletree mechanism predates, and has the structure of, an art mobile.

Man Ray made a mobile out of coat hangers, like a whippletree.

Alexander Calder is the preeminent artist in mobiles. His mobiles were often asymmetric.

Bruno Munari made his “useless machines” mobiles.