David Smith

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David Smith

• American Abstract Expressionist Sculptor,
  1906-1965

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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. Smiths 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 1940s and 50s, 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.
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The Royal Bird, 1948, stainless steel
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from left to right, Cubi XVIII,1964, stainless
steel, Cubi XVII, 1963, stainless steel, Cubi
XIX, 1964, stainless steel
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Sentinel IV 1957 Steel, painted black
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National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.
Cubi XXVI, 1965 steel
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Circle III, 1962 painted steel
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Voltri VII, 1962 iron
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Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden,
Washington D.C.
Agricola I 1951-2, painted steel
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Voltri XV 1962, steel
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Pittsburgh Landscape 1954, painted steel relief
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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.
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bibliography

• http//www2.gasou.edu/art/frieder/Graphics420/smit
  hcubis63.jpg
• http//www.uwrf.edu/history/images/art/smith-bird.
  jpg
• http//www.davidsmithestate.org/bio_files/sentinel
  V.jpg
• http//www.nga.gov/cgi-bin/pimage?5612600
• http//www.nga.gov/cgi-bin/pimage?5612700
• http//www.davidsmithestate.org
• http//www.bluffton.edu/sullivanm/hirshhorn/smith
  pitt2.jpg
• http//www.bluffton.edu/sullivanm/hirshhorn/smith
  agri.jpg
• http//www.bluffton.edu/sullivanm/hirshhorn/smith
  voltri2.jpg