Cow was created in the summer of 1928 when Calder spent time with his friend Jane Davenport at her house in Peekskill, New York, and was focused on transforming blocks of exotic wood into carved animals.

Provenance

George D. Pratt, Jr, Bridgewater, Connecticut, acquired in 1930 directly from Calder, his neighbor in Roxbury, Connecticut from 1933

Jane Abbott Pratt, his widow, 1975, Bridgewater and Amherst, Massachusetts

Helen Pratt Ladd, her daughter, by inheritance, 1990, Cambridge, Massachusetts

Her daughter, by inheritance, 2012, Northampton, Massachusetts

George Pratt owned Schaghticoke Farm in Bridgewater, a dairy farm dedicated to exploring new ways of milking and taking care of cows, now operated as the Sunny Valley Reserve under the auspices of the Nature Conservancy.  Calder’s Cow was the logo for the Farm.

Exhibitions and Publications

New York, Museum of Modern Art, Painting and Sculpture by Living Americans, Ninth Loan Exhibition, 1930, on loan from George D. Pratt, Jr., reproduced in the catalogue

New York, Museum of Modern Art, Calder Exhibition, 1943

Jean Lipman, Calder’s Universe, New York, Whitney Museum of American Art, 1976, reproduced p.224, published in conjunction with an exhibition that originated at the Whitney Museum and traveled to the High Museum, Atlanta; the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, 1976-7

Washington, National Gallery of Art, and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art,

Alexander Calder, 1998, color plate No. 15 in the catalogue

Hartford, Connecticut, Wadsworth Atheneum, Calder in Connecticut, 2000, loan requested