After a 12-year absence, Calder’s last sculpture returns to Capitol Hill: the new clouds will rotate for the first time

More than a decade after Alexander Calder’s last sculpture was dismantled and partially removed from the U.S. Senate’s Hart Building on Capitol Hill, the work is closer than ever to a full return — as Smithsonian Magazine reports, construction crews gathered last week in the atrium to begin the reinstallation process, which is expected to be completed by November.

“Mountains and Clouds” (1976), the roughly 15.5-metre-high painted aluminium installation, is Calder’s only work that combines static parts — five triangle-like mountains — with his characteristic hanging mobile, four ovoid clouds. It is also the artist’s final act: in 1976 the project was chosen for the nine-storey atrium of the Senate building; a few months after the announcement, Calder spent the last day of his life in Washington, presenting congressional officials with the small-scale model of the sculpture — and the next day he died of a heart attack at the age of 78. The work was realised after his death with the approval of the artist’s estate — the only time such permission was given — and was inaugurated on May 5, 1987, after New Jersey Senator Nicholas F. Brady personally raised the $650,000 needed for its construction.

For about 30 years the black landscape stood in dramatic contrast to the white marble of the atrium. But in 2014 the “clouds” were lowered to the ground without warning, over fears for structural safety following the 2011 earthquake; in 2016 they were removed completely. “It was a mutilation of his last masterpiece,” independent consultant Christian Quilici told The New York Times, adding that they were taken “under cover of night” and cut into pieces. Critics attacked the slowness of efforts to stabilise it: with the removal of the clouds that once rotated around the powerful peak, the sculpture “lost its balance and compositional meaning,” Artnet wrote.

Twelve years and $12 million from two private donors later, the clouds have been rebuilt with entirely new sheets made of a lighter carbon-fibre composite material. Now the long-awaited reunion of the clouds with Calder’s mountain is moving forward: the process involves hanging and balancing the clouds and then motorising them, so that they rotate gently around the peaks — as the artist’s original plans envisaged, but which was never realised, since the clouds had remained motionless since 1992. According to officials, their full movement could be achieved by November. “We are excited about the progress made so far in this historic restoration and look forward to sharing more soon,” a Calder Foundation spokesperson told Roll Call.