Born into Philadelphia's most famous family of sculptors, Calder began his artistic training in 1886 at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where he studied with Thomas Anshutz and Thomas Eakins. In 1890 he went to Paris, studying first at the Académie Julian and then at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. After two years he returned to Philadelphia and began teaching modeling at the Pennsylvania Academy. In 1894 he won his first major commission, a bust of Eakins's famous subject Dr. Samuel Gross. Calder and the painter the artist became known for civic sculpted monuments and portrait busts of his artist friends including John Singer Sargent, George Bellows, and Robert Henri.