Created in 1965, 'Un drôle de poisson' is a vibrant example of Alexander Calder’s graphic work, translating the playful energy and sense of movement that define his celebrated mobiles and sculptures into two dimensions. The whimsical fish-like form, rendered through bold, economical shapes and vivid colour, reflects Calder’s distinctive visual language: spontaneous, humorous and immediately recognisable. Rather than describing the subject literally, Calder reduces it to an animated interplay of line, colour and form, giving the composition the same feeling of balance and motion that characterises his three-dimensional work.

The lithograph was published in Paris by Éditions Maeght, with whom Calder maintained an important and productive relationship. Maeght was among the foremost publishers of post-war modern art, working closely with artists including Joan Miró, Marc Chagall and Alberto Giacometti. 'Un drôle de poisson' belongs to an especially fertile period of Calder’s career, when his imagery increasingly crossed between sculpture, works on paper and printmaking. Its combination of wit, simplicity and dynamic abstraction encapsulates the joyful visual vocabulary for which Calder remains one of the most distinctive artists of the twentieth century.