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Lot Essay
With To Be a Golden Harbour, David Smith employs the poetics of geometric abstractions to fossilize the fleeting moment of a sunset in a vivid atmosphere of sapphires and ambers. Like Claude Monet, Smith does not render an exacting image but, rather its impression: an assemblage of geometric shapes that he lyrically arranges across his vast field embedded in layers of spray paint to evoke the image of a harbor at dusk. Smith’s white geometries—outlines of mechanical parts—are stenciled by oscillating baths of color, all the while we are pushed to question what we are seeing: at once, one views the shadow of a brilliant sunset and the ever-looming specter of Smith’s dynamic gesture: With this vision, Smith assumes the role of Plato, who wrote in his famed Allegory of the Cave, “The truth would be literally nothing but the shadows of the images,” in his allegory of cavemen who view the world through its shadows onto their grotto walls (Plato, The Republic, “Book VII,” translated by Benjamin Jovett, Dover Thrift: 2014, p. 132).
David Smith is most known for his boundless innovations in abstract sculpture that elevated the medium into something poet, melodic, even, narrative. “My painting had turned to constructions,” he said, “which had risen from the canvas so high that a base was required where the canvas should be. I now was a sculptor…” he said (D. Smith, David Smith, New York, 1972, p. 68). And, like his iconic metal sculptures whose linear geometries explode into space before narrating stories of the natural world, To Be a Golden Harbour elevates mechanical parts and pigment into something lyrical. Working in his lakeside studio in upstate New York, Smith would begin each work by re-painting the floor of his studio a stark white. After then assembling various steel and metal elements into what Smith conceived of as a finished product, the artist would then blowtorch his composition, welding together his parts into a lyrical whole. Upon removing his finished product, the silhouette of his work would reveal itself as a two-dimensional white specter, outlined into the ground by the blowtorch’s residue.
Smith occupied a central role in the 20th century art historical canon following his first major retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in 1957 and his presence in the American Pavilion at the 29th Venice Biennale in 1958. Despite this success, Smith remained resolutely fascinated by the practicalities of art making. Remarking upon those flat negatives his sculptures left embedded into the ground, Smith began his first series of spray paintings in the late 1950s. Like with his sculptural practice, Smith would begin by arranging various found machine parts, scrap metal, and objects across a blank canvas or paper. But instead of reaching for his blowtorch which he used for his three-dimensional works, Smith instead seized the newly-invented aerosol spray can, which could stream paint with the same energy and dynamism that was inherent to Smith’s character.
As these sprayed works materialized, they would reveal themselves in layers as Smith would remove certain objects and add others, as complex geometric constructions eventually revealed themselves. He would then imbue the negative space with second, third, and sometimes fourth layers of paint, as if breathing life directly into his work. Still, these process-oriented works remain incredibly lyrical, imbued with sweetness inherent to Smith’s dynamic and heartfelt process. They are Smith’s love songs to process, to time, to his materials, and to space.
And while his process seized upon the aesthetics and physicality of mechanical advances, Smith remained in tune with his natural environment, and his art’s place within that space. In the 1930s, Smith and his family moved to Bolton Landing, New York to a home surrounded by the sprawling upstate landscape and the placid Lake George. There, Smith built for himself a spacious studio where his innovative practice become truly boundless in space, content, and form.
Smith himself made no qualitative distinctions between his works in two and three dimensions, and referred to his entire oeuvre as his “work stream,” through which ideas flowed from one medium to another and never truly separated amidst the completion of various works. This conception extended to the very way in which he lived his life in Bolton Landing, enjoying the vastness of its landscape himself before placing his steel sculptures in the rolling fields he too so enjoyed. These spray paintings, with their vast negative grounds and immersive atmospheres, allow for us to enter Smith’s world too. As his daughter remarks, “I find myself falling into their interior spaces. Foreground and background shift positions, the tiny droplets of paint color appear to continue to fall, the round of the painting, at times, seems to recede into infinite distance. Suddenly, I have a sense memory of cold moisture on my face. I feel the spray of clouds settle over our mountaintop home in Bolton Landing. I see the intimacy of stars bright in the night sky fall into unimaginable distance. With no ambient light in the mountains around us, starlight is sharp” (C. Smith, David Smith: Sprays, exh. cat., Gagosian, New York, 2008, p. 3).
David Smith is most known for his boundless innovations in abstract sculpture that elevated the medium into something poet, melodic, even, narrative. “My painting had turned to constructions,” he said, “which had risen from the canvas so high that a base was required where the canvas should be. I now was a sculptor…” he said (D. Smith, David Smith, New York, 1972, p. 68). And, like his iconic metal sculptures whose linear geometries explode into space before narrating stories of the natural world, To Be a Golden Harbour elevates mechanical parts and pigment into something lyrical. Working in his lakeside studio in upstate New York, Smith would begin each work by re-painting the floor of his studio a stark white. After then assembling various steel and metal elements into what Smith conceived of as a finished product, the artist would then blowtorch his composition, welding together his parts into a lyrical whole. Upon removing his finished product, the silhouette of his work would reveal itself as a two-dimensional white specter, outlined into the ground by the blowtorch’s residue.
Smith occupied a central role in the 20th century art historical canon following his first major retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in 1957 and his presence in the American Pavilion at the 29th Venice Biennale in 1958. Despite this success, Smith remained resolutely fascinated by the practicalities of art making. Remarking upon those flat negatives his sculptures left embedded into the ground, Smith began his first series of spray paintings in the late 1950s. Like with his sculptural practice, Smith would begin by arranging various found machine parts, scrap metal, and objects across a blank canvas or paper. But instead of reaching for his blowtorch which he used for his three-dimensional works, Smith instead seized the newly-invented aerosol spray can, which could stream paint with the same energy and dynamism that was inherent to Smith’s character.
As these sprayed works materialized, they would reveal themselves in layers as Smith would remove certain objects and add others, as complex geometric constructions eventually revealed themselves. He would then imbue the negative space with second, third, and sometimes fourth layers of paint, as if breathing life directly into his work. Still, these process-oriented works remain incredibly lyrical, imbued with sweetness inherent to Smith’s dynamic and heartfelt process. They are Smith’s love songs to process, to time, to his materials, and to space.
And while his process seized upon the aesthetics and physicality of mechanical advances, Smith remained in tune with his natural environment, and his art’s place within that space. In the 1930s, Smith and his family moved to Bolton Landing, New York to a home surrounded by the sprawling upstate landscape and the placid Lake George. There, Smith built for himself a spacious studio where his innovative practice become truly boundless in space, content, and form.
Smith himself made no qualitative distinctions between his works in two and three dimensions, and referred to his entire oeuvre as his “work stream,” through which ideas flowed from one medium to another and never truly separated amidst the completion of various works. This conception extended to the very way in which he lived his life in Bolton Landing, enjoying the vastness of its landscape himself before placing his steel sculptures in the rolling fields he too so enjoyed. These spray paintings, with their vast negative grounds and immersive atmospheres, allow for us to enter Smith’s world too. As his daughter remarks, “I find myself falling into their interior spaces. Foreground and background shift positions, the tiny droplets of paint color appear to continue to fall, the round of the painting, at times, seems to recede into infinite distance. Suddenly, I have a sense memory of cold moisture on my face. I feel the spray of clouds settle over our mountaintop home in Bolton Landing. I see the intimacy of stars bright in the night sky fall into unimaginable distance. With no ambient light in the mountains around us, starlight is sharp” (C. Smith, David Smith: Sprays, exh. cat., Gagosian, New York, 2008, p. 3).