Calder’s mercury fountain was a close-run thing in 1937

Sandy Calders mercury fountain, along with Picassos Guernica, were unveiled in Paris in 1937. Getting both of the works installed on time in the Spanish Republics Modernist pavilion in the Paris International Expo in 1937 was a close-run thing. The architects realised at the last minute that a steel column was in the way of Picassos great mural, which he painted for the expo as a protest to the bombing of the Basque town by the German airforce, which Hitler sent to aid Francos Nationalist force