David Roland Smith (March 9, 1906 - May 23, 1965) was an
AmericanThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
Abstract ExpressionistAbstract expressionism was an American post-World War II art movement. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve worldwide influence and put New York City at the center of the western art world, a role formerly filled by Paris....
sculptor best known for creating large
steelSteel is an alloy consisting mostly of iron, with a carbon content between 0.2% and 2.1% by weight, depending on the grade. Carbon is the most cost-effective alloying material for iron, but various other alloying elements are used such as manganese, chromium, vanadium, and tungsten...
abstract geometric sculptures.
Born in
DecaturDecatur is a city in Root and Washington townships, Adams County, Indiana, United States. Its population was 9,528 at the 2000 census. The city, which serves as the county seat of Adams County, takes its name after the prominent war hero Stephen Decatur, Jr., one of the captains of the original 6...
,
IndianaIndiana is a U.S. state, the 19
th admitted to the Union. It is located in the Great Lakes region, and with approximately 6.3 million residents, is ranked 16
th in population and 17
th in population density. Indiana is ranked 38
th in land area, and is the...
on March 9, 1906, Smith grew up in
Paulding, OhioPaulding is a village in and the county seat of Paulding County, Ohio, United States. It is located predominantly in Paulding Township. The population was 3,595 at the 2000 census....
, where his father Harvey ran the Paulding Telephone Company and mother Golda taught school. He studied at
Ohio UniversityOhio University is a public university located in Athens, Ohio that is situated on an 1,800 acre campus...
and the
University of Notre DameThe University of Notre Dame du Lac is a private Catholic research university located in Notre Dame, Indiana, USA....
, but dropped out to become a welder on an automobile production line in
South BendSouth Bend is a city in and the county seat of St. Joseph County, Indiana, United States, on the St. Joseph River. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total of 107,789 residents; its Metropolitan Statistical Area had a population of 316,663...
, Indiana.
David Roland Smith (March 9, 1906 - May 23, 1965) was an
AmericanThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
Abstract ExpressionistAbstract expressionism was an American post-World War II art movement. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve worldwide influence and put New York City at the center of the western art world, a role formerly filled by Paris....
sculptor best known for creating large
steelSteel is an alloy consisting mostly of iron, with a carbon content between 0.2% and 2.1% by weight, depending on the grade. Carbon is the most cost-effective alloying material for iron, but various other alloying elements are used such as manganese, chromium, vanadium, and tungsten...
abstract geometric sculptures.
Biography
Born in
DecaturDecatur is a city in Root and Washington townships, Adams County, Indiana, United States. Its population was 9,528 at the 2000 census. The city, which serves as the county seat of Adams County, takes its name after the prominent war hero Stephen Decatur, Jr., one of the captains of the original 6...
,
IndianaIndiana is a U.S. state, the 19
th admitted to the Union. It is located in the Great Lakes region, and with approximately 6.3 million residents, is ranked 16
th in population and 17
th in population density. Indiana is ranked 38
th in land area, and is the...
on March 9, 1906, Smith grew up in
Paulding, OhioPaulding is a village in and the county seat of Paulding County, Ohio, United States. It is located predominantly in Paulding Township. The population was 3,595 at the 2000 census....
, where his father Harvey ran the Paulding Telephone Company and mother Golda taught school. He studied at
Ohio UniversityOhio University is a public university located in Athens, Ohio that is situated on an 1,800 acre campus...
and the
University of Notre DameThe University of Notre Dame du Lac is a private Catholic research university located in Notre Dame, Indiana, USA....
, but dropped out to become a welder on an automobile production line in
South BendSouth Bend is a city in and the county seat of St. Joseph County, Indiana, United States, on the St. Joseph River. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total of 107,789 residents; its Metropolitan Statistical Area had a population of 316,663...
, Indiana. He joined the
Art Students League of New YorkThe Art Students League of New York is an art school located on West 57th Street in New York City. The League has historically been known for its broad appeal to both amateurs and professional artists, and has maintained for over 130 years a tradition of offering reasonably priced classes on a...
in 1927. There, he discovered the works of
PicassoPablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso was a Spanish painter, draughtsman, and sculptor. Commonly known simply as Picasso, he is one of the most recognized figures in 20th-century art...
,
MondrianPieter Cornelis "Piet" Mondriaan, after 1912 Mondrian , was a Dutch painter.He was an important contributor to the De Stijl art movement and group, which was founded by Theo van Doesburg. He evolved a non-representational form which he termed Neo-Plasticism...
,
KandinskyWassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky was a Russian painter, and art theorist. He is credited with painting the first modern abstract works....
, and the
Russian ConstructivistsConstructivism was an artistic and architectural movement that originated in Russia from 1919 onward which rejected the idea of "art for art's sake" in favour of art as a practice directed towards social purposes...
, and became friends with
Arshile GorkyArshile Gorky , was an Armenian-born American painter who had a seminal influence on Abstract Expressionism.-Biography:...
,
Willem de KooningWillem de Kooning was an abstract expressionist artist, born in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.In the post-World War II era, de Kooning painted in a style that came to be referred to variously as Abstract expressionism, Action painting, and the New York School...
,
Jan MatulkaJan Matulka was a Czech-American modern artist originally from Bohemia. Matulka's style would range from Abstract expressionism to landscapes, sometimes in the same day.-Life and work:...
, and
Jackson PollockPaul Jackson Pollock was an influential American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. During his lifetime, Pollock enjoyed considerable fame and notoriety. He was regarded as a mostly reclusive artist. He had a volatile personality and struggled with alcoholism all of...
.
Profoundly influenced by the
welded sculptureWelded sculpture is an artform in which sculpture is made using welding techniques. Welding was increasingly used in sculpture from the 1930s as new industrial processes such as arc welding were adapted to aesthetic purposes...
s of
Julio GonzálezJuli González i Pellicer was a Catalan abstract, cubist painter and sculptor.-Biography:Born in Barcelona, as a young man he worked with his older brother, Joan, in his father’s metal smith workshop. Both brothers took evening classes in art at the Escuela de Bellas Artes...
and of Picasso, Smith started devoting himself entirely to metal sculptures, constructing compositions from steel and "found" scrap material. In the summer of 1929, Smith, along with his then wife
Dorothy DehnerDorothy Dehner was an American sculptor. Her work is included in the collections of the National Museum of Women in the Arts and the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Some pieces may also be found at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, also part of the Smithsonian Institution.-External...
, bought a house in Bolton Landing, in
upstateUpstate New York is the region of New York State north of the core of the New York metropolitan area.-Definition:There is no clear or official boundary between Upstate New York and Downstate New York, but the term "Upstate" is sometimes used to refer to the whole of the state besides New York City...
New YorkNew York is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States and is the nation's third most populous. The state is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
and won the
Logan Medal of the artsThe Logan Medal of the Arts was an arts prize initiated in 1907 and associated with the Art Institute of Chicago. From 1917 through 1940, 270 awards were given....
.
In 1940, Smith moved permanently to Bolton Landing and created the Terminal Iron Works studio. In the long term, this allowed him to enlarge the size of many of his welded sculptures, moving to installations that increased in size as time passed by. In the short term, the Second World War disrupted Smith's supply of metal and reduced the demand for abstract art, leading Smith to draw and paint more than he had done previously. Smith painted prolifically throughout most of his career. He created landscapes, cubist abstractions and in the 1960s a series of sprayed pictographs that resemble visual studies for his
CubiCubi is a series of stainless steel sculptures, comprising of cubes, rectagular prisms, and the like. This series was the last project of David Smith, American contemporary sculptor. This series comprises 28 sculptures...
sculptures.
However, with the end of conflict came a flood of new works, on a larger scale than ever before. In 1950, the
Solomon R. Guggenheim FoundationThe Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation is a nonprofit corporation founded in 1937 by philanthropist Solomon R. Guggenheim and artist Hilla von Rebay. The first museum established by the foundation was the Museum of Non-Objective Art" which was housed in rented space on Park Avenue in New York...
awarded Smith a fellowship, removing the financial constraints and allowing him to spend more time sculpting. Furthermore, it allowed Smith to continue to create larger works and longer and more articulated series of works. The first of these were the
Agricola (1951-1957) and
Tanktotem (1952-1960) series.
In 1957, the
Museum of Modern ArtThe Museum of Modern Art is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, USA, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been singularly important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the...
,
New York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States, and the center of the New York metropolitan area, which is among the most populous urban areas in the world. A leading global city, New York exerts a powerful influence over worldwide commerce, finance, culture, fashion and entertainment...
, presented a Smith retrospective, complete with work dating back to 1932. In 1961, MoMA organized a major traveling exhibition of his work.
In 1962, the government of
ItalyItaly , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia. Italy shares its northern, Alpine boundary with France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia...
invited Smith to create two works for a festival, and gave him free access to an abandoned welding studio in the small town of Voltri, in
LiguriaLiguria is a coastal region of north-western Italy, the third smallest of the Italian regions. Its capital is Genoa. It is a popular region with tourists for its beautiful beaches, picturesque little towns, and food.- Geography :...
. There, finding massive stockpiles of material, Smith decided to switch his plans from
stainless steelIn metallurgy, stainless steel, also known as inox steel or inox, is defined as a steel alloy with a minimum of 11% chromium content by mass. Stainless steel does not stain, corrode, or rust as easily as ordinary steel...
to steel. The result was his
Voltri series: 27 sculptures created in just 30 days. Still not satisfied with these, he shipped many tonnes of steel from Voltri back to the Bolton Landing, so that he could continue to work with the same material. Throughout late 1962 and early 1963, Smith produced a similarly-themed series, which he called
Voltron, which was more varied and more prominently incorporated the trademark verticality of
Tanktotem.
He began his
CubiCubi is a series of stainless steel sculptures, comprising of cubes, rectagular prisms, and the like. This series was the last project of David Smith, American contemporary sculptor. This series comprises 28 sculptures...
series of monumental, geometric steel sculptures in 1961 (although he began in earnest only in 1963). They are considered some of the most important works of 20th century American sculpture. In recognition of his influence on abstract expressionism, Smith was appointed to the National Council on the Arts by
PresidentThe President of the United States is the head of state and head of government of the United States and is the highest political official in the United States by influence and recognition...
Lyndon B. JohnsonLyndon Baines Johnson , served as the 36th President of the United States from 1963 to 1969 after his service as the Vice President of the United States from 1961 to 1963...
in 1965. However, at the peak of his influence and still working on
Cubi, he died in a car crash near Bennington,
VermontThe State of Vermont is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state ranks 43rd by land area, , and 45th by total area. It has a population of 621,270, making it the second least-populated state...
in May 1965.
Significant Works
Cubi XXVIII, executed in 1965, is the name of the last of a
seriesCubi is a series of stainless steel sculptures, comprising of cubes, rectagular prisms, and the like. This series was the last project of David Smith, American contemporary sculptor. This series comprises 28 sculptures...
of large metal sculptures created by American artist David Smith. Formerly housed at the
Solomon R. Guggenheim MuseumThe Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum opened its doors on October 21, 1959 and is one of the best-known museums in New York City and one of the 20th century's most important architectural landmarks...
, on November 9, 2005, the sculpture became the most expensive work of
contemporary artContemporary art can be defined variously as art produced at this present point in time or art produced since World War II. The definition of the word contemporary would support the first view, but museums of contemporary art commonly define their collections as consisting of art produced since...
ever sold at auction, selling for $23.8
millionOne million or one thousand thousand, is the natural number following 999,999 and preceding 1,000,001. The name is derived from Italian, where mille was 1,000, and 1,000,000 became milione, "a large thousand"....
at
Sotheby'sSotheby's is the world's third oldest auction house in continuous operation.-History:The oldest auction house in operation is the Stockholms Auktionsverk founded in 1674 and the second oldest is Uppsala Auktionskammare founded in 1731, both Swedish...
ManhattanManhattan is one of the five boroughs of New York City, located primarily on Manhattan Island at the mouth of the Hudson River.New York County, which has the same boundaries as the Borough of Manhattan , is the most densely populated county in the United States, with a 2008 population of 1,634,795...
auction house to art dealer
Larry Gagosian who was acting on behalf of billionaire art collector
Eli BroadEli Broad a native of Detroit, Michigan is a American billionaire who presently resides in Los Angeles, California. His last name is pronounced as rhyming with road.Broad is well known for his philanthropy and extensive art collection...
. "This exceedingly rare work was the pinnacle of a four-decade career," said Tobias Meyer, Sotheby's worldwide head of contemporary art and the auctioneer for the evening. It was the last significant work that Smith produced before he unexpectedly died in a car crash.
Pillar of Sundays, produced in August 1945, was inspired by Smith's memories of events, rituals, foods, and sounds associated with the Sundays of his teen years. His mother, Golda, was active in the
Methodist Episcopal churchThe United Methodist Church is a Methodist Christian denomination which traces its roots back to the evangelical, holiness, revival movement of John and Charles Wesley within the Anglican Church. As such, the church's theological orientation is decidedly Wesleyan. It contains both liturgical and...
two doors away from his home in small-town
Paulding, OhioPaulding is a village in and the county seat of Paulding County, Ohio, United States. It is located predominantly in Paulding Township. The population was 3,595 at the 2000 census....
. Some of the images, attached like leaves on a tree, are obvious, such as birds and an inscribed heart, but on the whole, the sculpture is ambiguous, suggestive, and intriguing. In a 1959 speech at
Ohio UniversityOhio University is a public university located in Athens, Ohio that is situated on an 1,800 acre campus...
, Smith said, "When I lived and studied in Ohio, I had a very vague sense of what art was. Everyone I knew who used the reverent word was almost as unsure and insecure. Mostly art was reproductions, from far away, from an age past and from some golden shore, certainly from no place like the mud banks of the Auglaze or the Maumee, and there didn’t seem much chance that it could come from Paulding County." The sculpture is in the collection of the
Indiana University Art MuseumEstablished in 1941, the Indiana University Art Museum in Bloomington, Indiana, USA, has become known as "one of the foremost university art museums in the country". The museum currently holds several internationally acclaimed collections, ranging from ancient gold jewelry and African masks to...
. Smith taught art at
Indiana UniversityIndiana University is the flagship campus of the Indiana University system. It is also known as Indiana University Bloomington, Indiana, or simply IU, and is located in Bloomington, Indiana....
during the 1954-1955 academic year.
Major Series
- Agricola
- Circle
- Cubi
Cubi is a series of stainless steel sculptures, comprising of cubes, rectagular prisms, and the like. This series was the last project of David Smith, American contemporary sculptor. This series comprises 28 sculptures...
- Forging
- Medals for Dishonor
- Sentinel
- Tanktotem
- Voltri
- Voltron
- Wagons
- Zig
Writings
- Sculpture and Writings (ed by Cleve Gray) Thames & Hudson New York/London 1968(new edition 1989) ISBN 978-0500275207
External links