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Alexander Calder (1898-1976) was a sculptor, painter, printmaker, designer, and performance artist. The first gift that he gave his future wife Louisa James was a bracelet he made of hammered brass. In 1930 she wrote to her mother, "Sandy appreciates and enjoys the things in life that most people haven't the sense to notice... He has tremendous originality, imagination, and humor, which ...make life colorful and worthwhile." In that year Calder gave Louisa an engagement ring he made in gold.

Calder designed and produced more than 1800 works of jewelry, including hundreds of gifts for Louisa. He made jewelry for family members and friends, such as Peggy Guggenheim and Georgia O'Keeffe, and exhibited his jewelry in gallery exhibitions, avoiding precious materials to keep the works affordable. He consciously referenced primitive art and Surrealism in many of the designs that often appear to be small studies for sculpture or drawings in wire.

Calder Jewelry commences the Centennial Year of the Grand Rapids Art Museum (1910-2010), recalling Calder's historic association with the Museum during the 1969 installation of La Grande Vitesse. A combination of sculpture, craft, and design, the 100 necklaces, rings, bracelets, and brooches created from the 1930s through the 1960s introduce a new dimension of Alexander Calder's artistic achievement. These works embody the same humor and invention as his mobiles that came to life as they moved.

The exhibition is co-organized by the Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, Florida, and the Calder Foundation, New York. The Grand Rapids Art Museum is the final venue for this exhibition, which has been presented at the Philadelphia Museum of Art; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin; and San Diego Museum of Art, California.