David Smith (sculptor)

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David Smith, CUBI VI, 1963, steel sculpture

David Smith (born March 9, 1906 in Decatur , Indiana , † May 23, 1965 in Bennington , Vermont ) was an American painter and sculptor who can be assigned to abstract expressionism . He is known for his large steel sculptures (especially the Cubi and Voltri series).

life and work

David Smith's father, Harvey, was a telephone company engineer, and his mother, Golda, a teacher. Initially, Smith was employed as a welder at an auto factory in South Bend, Indiana , where he learned metalworking skills. After studying at Ohio University and the University of Notre Dame , he joined the Art Students League of New York , where he became aware of the works of Picasso , Mondrian , Kandinsky and the Russian constructivists through the Czech painter Jan Matulka . In 1927 he married the painter Dorothy Dehner and made friends with other great artists of the time such as Arshile Gorky , Willem de Kooning , Jackson Pollock and above all John D. Graham (1886–1961), who introduced him to abstract art.

Inspired by his painting and the welded sculptures by Pablo Picasso and Julio Gonzáles , he began to make steel sculptures in 1933/34 after his first wooden sculptures in 1932. He preferred to use material found by chance, such as tools and machine parts, which he put together "painterly". In one of his first sculptures Construction (Lyndhaven) from 1932, which was created after a stay of several months in the Virgin Islands , he joined cast parts made of lead with iron rods and pieces of coral to form a standing figure. After a stay in Europe in 1935/36, Smith designed his Medals for Dishonor from 1937 to 1940 , influenced by the work of Ludwig Gies and Karl Goetz . The fifteen bronze plaques represent, in the tradition of Goya, an indictment of moral hypocrisy and the horrors of war. Bombing Civilian Populations (1939) shows a tattered female torso releasing an unborn child. Meanwhile, Smith was working as a welder in a factory and wasn't able to return to plastic until the late 1940s. In 1950, Blackburn - Song of an Irish Blacksmith ( Blackburn: Song of an Irish Blacksmith ) was a sculpture made of steel and bronze, which had floral structures in a tree-like shape and contained fantastic elements.

In 1962 he was invited by the Italian government to make sculptures for the Festival of Two Worlds exhibition in Spoleto , for which an abandoned steel mill in Voltri was made available to him. Within 30 days he completed the 27 works of his series Voltri sculptures . Then he made a Cubi series . Cubi XXVIII was acquired by art dealer Larry Gagosian on November 28, 2005 at Sotheby’s New York for an auction price of $ 23.8 million . It thus became the most expensive contemporary work of art.

David Smith was a participant in the Venice Biennale in 1954 and 1958 and had a solo exhibition in 1957 at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. He was represented at documenta II (1959), documenta III (1964), and also posthumously at the 4th documenta (1968) and documenta 6 in 1977 in Kassel . In January 1967 Dietrich Mahlow organized a solo exhibition of his in the Kunsthalle Nürnberg .

In 1965, David Smith died in a car accident at the age of 59.

literature

  • Julia M. Busch: A Decade of Sculpture: the New Media in the 1960s . The Art Alliance Press, Philadelphia / London 1974, ISBN 0-87982-007-1
  • Marika Herskovic: American Abstract Expressionism of the 1950s An Illustrated Survey . New York School Press, 2003, ISBN 0-9677994-1-4
  • Marika Herskovic: New York School Abstract Expressionists Artists Choice by Artists . New York School Press, 2000, ISBN 0-9677994-0-6

Web links

Commons : David Smith  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Barbara Rose, America's Way to Modern Art (Original Edition: American Art Since 1900 ), DuMont, Cologne 1969; detailed interpretation of the sculpture in the Wilhelm-Lehmbruck-Museum : Information Sheets 6. International Sculpture 1935–1965. Duisburg 1985, sheet: Smith (not paginated); without author
  2. ↑ Carol Vogel. In: New York Times , November 10, 2005
  3. ^ Ingo F. Walter, in: Ruhrberg, Schneckenburger u. a. (Ed.): Art of the 20th Century , Volume 2, p. 809, Taschen, 1998 ISBN 3-8228-8576-2
  4. ^ Catalog: David Smith: Sculptures: Kunsthalle Nürnberg, January 17 - February 20, 1967
personal data
SURNAME Smith, David
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Smith, David Roland (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American sculptor
DATE OF BIRTH March 9, 1906
PLACE OF BIRTH Decatur (Indiana)
DATE OF DEATH May 23, 1965
Place of death Bennington (Vermont)