How Many Times Has The Calder Been Painted?

Crews have began removing years of old paint off of the Calder sculpture 'La Grande Vitesse', and by the looks of it, it was just in time.

This year, instead of just putting another coat of red the 50 year old work of art, painting crews will be removing all the old paint and taking it down to the metal, which is revealing a fascinating look at the layers of old paint.

A photo posted to the Grand Rapids sub group on Reddit reveals just how thick the years of paint got before getting scraped off.

One poster to the group revealed that there was more than 20 layers of old red paint.

As part of the restoration, crews will remove more than 20 layers of paint down to the bare metal, tighten the stabile’s bolts, secure welding where needed and paint the sculpture with a fresh coat of the artist’s signature “Calder Red” paint.

And yet another poster suggested maybe it was time for a new color.

we should paint it blue...and put a river under it

Check out the photo of the layers of paint here.