Biography

James John Calder was born in Detroit, MI in 1907. He was the youngest of four siblings: brother Ralph (b.1894), sister Marguerite (b.1896), and brother Robert (b.1900). He studied at the Detroit Society of Arts & Crafts in the late 1920s, where his teachers included Samuel Halpert and John Carroll. Halpert had arrived in Detroit only a few years before his death at age 46. He was Russian-born, had studied in Europe and had been immersed in the ferment of modernist art in New York. Carroll succeeded Halpert as head of the Detroit Society of Arts & Crafts in 1930 and became well-known for his dreamy and mysterious female portraits.

Calder exhibited at the Detroit Institute of the Arts from 1931-1951. His work won prizes from the Institute in 1932 and 1936. He also exhibited at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (1938).

Calder's first Post Office mural was the result of his entry in the 48 States Competition of 1939. His "Waiting for the Mail" was the mural selected for Michigan and installed at Grand Ledge. He completed a second Post Office mural "St. Clair River" for St. Clair, MI the same year. That commission had been awarded to him after his submission for a competition for the East Detroit Post Office had come in second place in 1938.

Calder was invited to exhibit at the Golden Gate International Exposition in San Francisco (1939-1940), and he received a commission for the Post Office mural "Harbor at Rogers City" that was installed in Rogers City, MI in 1941.

During World War II, Calder worked at General Motors. The company offered him a position in commercial art after the War, but he turned them down. His oldest brother Ralph had been working for various architectural firms and decided to set up his own shop in 1945. James was drafted to do architectural renderings for Ralph, which he did for the rest of his career. Ralph's firm became famous for designing university buildings and, as such, made a major impact on universities in the Detroit area.

Meanwhile James continued to paint. He received a Purchase Prize from the Detroit Institute of Art in 1954 for his "Mariners Church." The church is a famous one in Detroit, having steadfastly maintained its independence over the years, having been physically moved to make way for the Detroit Civic Center, and having been cited in Gordon Lightfoot's song "The Wreck of the Edmond Fitzgerald."

In 1957, Calder received another Purchase Prize in the Annual Exhibition Michigan Artists at the Detroit Art Institute for his "Saint Anne's from Bridge (1956). Calder died in Detroit in 1977.

Critical Analysis

It is remarkable to look at the evolution of Calder's style of painting from his 1939 mural in Grand Ledge, MI to his 1941 composition for Rogers City, MI. The Grand Ledge mural is the epitome for Section of Fine Arts art. It nails all of the essential Rooseveltian themes. A prosperous and contented farm family dominates the foreground, with overflowing baskets of recently harvested fruit. In the background are orderly farm fields and a well-maintained barn. Between these two vistas runs a rural road with a Model T delivering the mail. Not only is the family prospering; it is maintaining speedy contact with the outside world.

Only one element of the Grand Ledge painting gives a hint of what is to come in Calder's work. The barn is just a little too neat, just a little too much a bit of geometric perfection. But that is exactly where Calder was heading. His Rogers City mural "Harbor at Rogers City" is a masterpiece of Precisionist art. Gone are all traces of sentimentality from "Waiting for the Mail." Color gradations have been flattened, and the whole sense of the painting is a celebration of the geometric line. Calder was able to pass off this frankly abstract work by having it portray (very accurately) the town's calcite plant with two Great Lakes freighters, the Ream and the Taylor.

Other works of Calder's show a similar evolution toward Precisionism. It is easy to see how Calder could have moved from painting his Precisionist pieces to creating architectural renderings for his brother's firm. One wonders if the firm's clients viewed his drawings as accurate forecasts of their builder's plan or as drafts for the wonderful works of art they might have been.

Murals

• Grand Ledge, Michigan - Post Office: Waiting for the Mail
• Rogers City, Michigan - Post Office: Harbor at Rogers City
• Saint Clair, Michigan - Post Office: St. Clair River

References

1. Biography of John James Calder (artprice).
2. Cheryl Ann Chidester, The documentation and preservation of art-in- architecture of Michigan: The section of fine arts projects (2007).
3. RC Post Office mural is a legacy of New Deal activism, Presque Isle County Advance and Onaway Outlook December 15 (2004).