Tony Smith (sculptor)

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Tony Smith (born September 23, 1912 in South Orange , New Jersey , † December 26, 1980 in New York ) is one of the most famous American sculptors of the 1960s and is regarded as one of the most important pioneers of minimalism .

Wandering rocks (1967–1970), sculpture park at the Kröller-Müller Museum , Otterlo

Act

It was only after 1962 that the first monumental sculptures were made by Smith, who until then was known more as a visionary architect. He studied painting in New York and architecture at the New Bauhaus in Chicago , where he also worked for several years as an assistant to Frank Lloyd Wright . He finally turned more and more to sculpture, because there, in contrast to function-bound architecture, he was able to realize his ideas of the body in space without compromise. Other artists such as Carl Andre , Barnett Newman and Frank Stella also realized monumental outdoor sculptures in situ . The sculpture left the studio , as it were, and increasingly took up public space . In 1968 he participated in the 4th documenta in Kassel in the sculpture department . In 1979 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters .

Tony Smith began as one of the first American sculptors to reduce sculpture to such an extent that the term "minimal art" seems a natural consequence. His sculptures are the simplest combinations of geometric shapes, they are reminiscent of archaic structures and therefore appear to the viewer as already familiar.

His daughter Kiki Smith works as an installation artist and body art artist.

Art collection

In 1967 he donated his collection of seven paintings by American Abstract Expressionism painters, including paintings by Jackson Pollock , Clyfford Still , Mark Rothko, and Barnett Newman , to the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Hartford , Connecticut.

literature

  • F. Meschede (Ed.): Tony Smith. Sculptures and drawings 1961-1969. Exhibition catalog, Westfälisches Landesmuseum Münster a. a., Münster 1988

Web links

Commons : Tony Smith  - Collection of Pictures, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Members: Tony Smith. American Academy of Arts and Letters, accessed April 26, 2019 .
  2. Tony Smith at 100 ( Memento of the original from January 14, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.thewadsworth.org