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 IV1957

Steel, painted black

National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.

Cubi XXVI, 1965steel

Circle III, 1962painted steel

Voltri VII, 1962

iron

Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington

D.C.

Agricola I1951-2, painted steel

Voltri XV 1962, steel

Pittsburgh Landscape1954, 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• 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