David Smith
American Abstract Expressionist
Sculptor, 1906-1965
David Smith
(1906-1965)
American sculptor, David Smith, attended Ohio University to study art from 1924 up to the
summer of 1925 when he left to work at the Studebaker motor plant in South Bend, Indiana.
There he felt his true training had begun. In 1926, Smith went to study painting at the Art
Students’ League in New York at which time he befriended Arshile Gorky and Willem de
Kooning. When Smith left the Art Students’ League in 1930, he began to work on sculpture,
not seeing a distinguishable difference between this and painting except for their technical
execution. Smith’s newfound interest in sculpture related itself well to the welding and other
metal working skills that he had acquired while working at the Studebaker plant. His work
was inspired technically by sculptor, Julio Gonzalez, but conceptually and visually
influenced by artists like Wassily Kandinsky, Piet Mondrian, and the general Cubist
aesthetic. His first constructions were created from steel, found objects, and agricultural
machinery. In 1940, Smith exhibited Medals of Dishonor, a set of fifteen bronze relief
plaques, illustrating the commonplace for voracity and injustice in the world. During the
1940’s and 50’s, Smith created pieces like, Hudson River Landscape, work that was
described as linear drawings made of metal. After 1950, Smith constructed the pieces that
he is most remembered for today. These monumental metal sculptures like, Tank Totem,
Agricola, and Voltri, dealt with the contradiction between density and sense of instability.
The Royal Bird, 1948, stainless steel
from left to right, Cubi XVIII,1964, stainless steel, Cubi XVII, 1963,
stainless steel, Cubi XIX, 1964, stainless steel
Sentinel IV
1957
Steel, painted black
National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.
Cubi XXVI, 1965
steel
Circle III, 1962
painted steel
Voltri VII, 1962
iron
Hirshhorn Museum and
Sculpture Garden, Washington
D.C.
Agricola I
1951-2, painted steel
Voltri XV
1962, steel
Pittsburgh Landscape
1954, painted steel relief
I now know that sculpture is made from rough externals
by rough characters or men who have passed through all
polish and are back to the rough again.
bibliography
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http://www2.gasou.edu/art/frieder/Graphics420/smithcubis63.jpg
http://www.uwrf.edu/history/images/art/smith-bird.jpg
http://www.davidsmithestate.org/bio_files/sentinelV.jpg
http://www.nga.gov/cgi-bin/pimage?56126+0+0
http://www.nga.gov/cgi-bin/pimage?56127+0+0
http://www.davidsmithestate.org
http://www.bluffton.edu/~sullivanm/hirshhorn/smithpitt2.jpg
http://www.bluffton.edu/~sullivanm/hirshhorn/smithagri.jpg
http://www.bluffton.edu/~sullivanm/hirshhorn/smithvoltri2.jpg