Alexander Calder is the creator of mobiles, balanced floating sculptures, and their static counterpart, stabiles. Today he is recognized as one of the leading international sculptors of the twentieth century. Born into an artistically gifted family--his mother was a painter and his father and grandfather were sculptors--Alexander "Sandy" Calder, was creatively nurtured during his childhood in Pennsylvania and much of his work throughout his career maintains a characteristic youthful whimsy. Calder received a degree in mechanical engineering before moving to New York City in 1923 to study at the Art Students League. It was, however, a move to Paris three years later, that ultimately set his career in motion. There, Calder created miniature, moveable sculptures of circus figures that he performed to the amusement of the great artists of the day. These artists such as Joan Miro, Jean Arp, Fernand Leger, Piet Mondrian, and Marcel Duchamp in turn introduced him to abstraction. Upon his return to the United States in 1933, Calder purchased a farm in Roxbury, Connecticut and established a studio there, where he lived and worked for the remainder of his career.

Calder was already an international success when he was commissioned to create the first public sculpture to be funded by the National Endowment for the Arts through their Works of Art in Public Places Program. Before he began his design, Calder studied the architectural plans, scale, and materials of the buildings that were adjacent to the site. He designed a sculpture that responded precisely to the color, size, and shape of the plaza and the city and county buildings. That work, La Grande Vitesse, was dedicated to the City of Grand Rapids on June 14, 1969. Since then, the stabile has become a symbol for the city--a graphic of it adorns the city's street signs, letterhead and vehicles. Translated as "the great swiftness" or "the grand rapids", La Grande Vitesse, demonstrates Calder's ability to create in simple form and color artistic and engineering mastery. Although measuring fifty-four feet long, forty-three feet high, thirty feet wide, and weighing more than 42 tons, La Grand Vitesse is airy and fluid. Like many of his stabiles, La Grand Vitesse is painted in the artist's signature "Calder Red."