Peau Rouge Indiana (Calder, 40 ft)

In autumn 2025 a 40-foot Calder stabile on the Indiana University campus stood inside a containment structure while it was stripped to bare metal and repainted. Peau Rouge Indiana is a 40-foot work of sheet metal, bolts and paint by Alexander Calder, who had been making stationary abstract works he called stabiles since the 1930s. Indiana University commissioned it, and Oscar R. Ewing, a member of the class of 1910 who later served as administrator of the Federal Security Agency under President Harry Truman, directed his gift to the university's 150th Birthday Fund so that it could pay for the sculpture. According to IU, Calder made it at his studio in France, working from drawings and photographs of the Musical Arts Center project so that its scale would suit the building. It was assembled, taken apart, shipped to Bloomington and reassembled to his instructions. The Calder Foundation dates the work 1970; IU says it was dedicated in 1971, a year before the Musical Arts Center itself. WFIU describes it as the last site-specific commission of Calder's life. By 2025 rust and corrosion had appeared. IU says the previous repainting was in 2007, and WFIU reports about three years of planning with the Calder Foundation and conservator Abigail Mack. A containment structure went up in the autumn, the old paint was sandblasted to bare metal, a zinc coating and primer followed, and application of the orange-red paint known as Calder Red began on 11 November 2025. WFIU reported the final topcoats finished in mid-November. The Indiana Daily Student's October 2026 guide to campus sculptures lists it in front of the Musical Arts Center.