Alexander Calder was partial to animal sculpture all his life, at an early age sketching animals he saw at the circus and zoo. In 1926, he began work on his famous Cirque Calder, a portable, miniature circus of animals and entertainers made of wire and found objects. In the late 1960s, he returned to animals as subject, creating a new type of sculpture his wife, Louise, named animobile — a blend of the words animal and mobile, Calder’s earlier format of suspended, kinetic sculptures fashioned of painted metal and wire.

Blunt Tail Dog consists of an unmoving red body, with its ​“blunt tail,” upon which rests a ​“mobile” of shifting parts that wittily suggest eyes, ears, tongue, and head. Calder’s doggy is sweet, funny, and endearing — even irreverent in its eccentric shapes.