Calder’s mobiles had been inspired by a 1930 visit to Piet Mondrian’s studio and were given their name by Marcel Duchamp. For the remainder of his career, Calder
explored the polarities of weightlessness and mass, color and line, motion and stability. According to him, the most important element in a composition was “disparity.” Having represented the United States at the 1952 Venice Biennale, where he won the Grand Prize for sculpture, Calder was at the height of his reputation when he made this work.

Signature: Signed and dated on large black leaf: CA 56

Galerie Maeght, Paris, acquired from the artist; David Solinger; Klaus Perls Galleries, New York, by 1964 - October 4, 1965; B.C. Holland Gallery, Chicago, purchased from Perls, October 4, 1965; Muriel Kallis Steinberg Newman, Chicago, purchased from B. C. Holland, 1965 - her gift to The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2006

Alexander Calder: A Retrospective Exhibition, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, November 1964-January 1965, Musée national d'art moderne, Paris, July-October, 1965, Milwaukee Art Center, and Washington University Gallery of Art, St. Louis, exh. cat., English ed., no. 161 (as Four Directions, 1956, lent by Perls Galleries, New York), not ill. French ed., Calder, no. 174 (as Quatre directions, 1956, lent by Perls Galleries), not ill.
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Alexander Calder: A Retrospective Exhibition, Work from 1925 to 1974, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, October 26-December 8, 1974, exh. cat., n.p. (checklist, as Four Directions, erroneously dated 1959, private collection), not ill.

An American Choice: The Muriel Kallis Steinberg Newman Collection, May 21-September 27, 1981, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1981, exh. cat. edited by William S. Lieberman, pp. 49 (ill.), 153.

Abstract Expressionism and Other Modern Works: The Muriel Kallis Steinberg Newman Collection in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, September 18, 2007 - February 3, 2008, exh. cat. edited by Gary Tinterow, Lisa Mintz Messinger, and Nan Rosenthal, no., pp. 6 (ill.), 172-173 (ill., essay by Marla Prather).

Program notes for composer Gunther Schuller's "American Triptych: Three Studies in Texture" (composition based on Calder's Four Directions, Jackson Pollock's Out of the Web, and Stuart Davis' Swing Landscape), performed in Chicago by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, January 23, 1966, ill. in program brochure (as Four Directions, coll. Mrs. Albert H. Newman, Chicago).

Monica Meenan, "The Vigorous Collectors," Town & Country, vol. 132, no. 4981 (September 1978), p. 148 (ill., photo showing Mrs. Newman at home).

Judith Goldman, "Collecting in Chicago: Love Affairs with Art," Artnews, vol. 78, no. 2, February 1979, p. 49.

Alice Hess, "Great Private Collections: A Chicago Visionary," Saturday Review, vol. 7, no. 14, October 1980, pp. 3, 72-75 (ills.).

Grace Glueck, "Met is Given a $12 Million Art Collection," New York Times, December 10, 1980, p. 21.

Hilton Kramer, "Modernist Show Moves Met Firmly into Art of 20th Century," New York Times, May 22, 1981, p. C1.

M. W. Newman, "Chicago," Franklin Mint Almanac, vol. 12, no. 4, July-August 1981, p. 20 (ill., photo showing Mrs. Newman at home).

Judith Goldman, "Collecting: Vicarious Pleasures of a Daring Painter-Turned-Collector," Vogue, August 1981, p. 50 (ill., photo of Mrs. Newman at home).

William Agee, "Muriel Kallis Newman: Life Among the Moderns," Architectural Digest, December 1986, p. 66 (part of the sculpture visible in ill. p. 70).

Victoria Newhouse, Art and the Power of Placement (New York: Monacelli Press, 2005), p. 170 (ill. fig. 164, Mrs. Newman's apartment).