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Lot Essay
Executed in 1957, the surface of David Smith’s Untitled displays an abundance of the expressive sculptural gestures that led the artist to be widely regarded as one of the greatest American sculptors of the postwar period. It’s carefully worked surface is a striking example of Smith’s ability to work metal in such a way as to evoke organic forms seen in nature. In form, the sculpture is suggestive of a branch, or a larger tree and some observers have even reported recalling a human figure in a similar way to many of Smith’s vertically reaching sculptures. The serpentine central portion stretches upward, its bending, gently curving lines suggesting swaying movement; the sinuous, curvilinear outlines of the sculpture give the impression of having been traced directly into the air by the artist.
Extending outward at right angles from the central core, smaller adjuncts reach out in either direction. If interpreted as a arboreal form, the appearance is of movement, perhaps coaxed by a slight breeze. If seen as a human form, the sculpture suggests a figure watchfully observing its surroundings. Smith pursued themes that spoke of an uneasy relationship between modernity, civilization and nature and a preoccupation with landscape and of man's place in the world.
Untitled projects an unmistakable aura of strength, stability and grace, reflective of both the artist’s own powerful personality and of the combined strength and warmth of the bronze material he chose to use for this work. The forms are suggestive of lines drawn in space, appropriate given that drawing was something Smith did on a daily basis, producing hundreds of drawings over the span of his career, using the medium to work out formal problems in sculpture.
The sculpture also displays Smith’s interest in combining solid forms with areas of open space, these voids are notable in the inverted V-shape at the sculpture’s base, and the circular form and triangular shape toward the top of the work. The areas of open space lend the sculpture a pleasing lightness, offsetting the denser central core of the piece. Indeed, exploring the ways that the individual elements interrelate is one of the central themes of this artwork, attesting to Smith’s ability to develop evocative sculptural forms via the selection and combination of diverse and distinct individual elements that seem to have developed organically.
Critics have referred to Smith’s energetic use of materials and forms as three-dimensional Abstract Expressionism, evident here in the verve and vigor of this sculpture’s contours. Untitled was created at the height of the artist’s mature period, and in the same year that Smith’s work was included in the 29th Venice Biennale. In the catalogue of a solo exhibition that the Museum of Modern Art, New York organized for the sculptor just one year before Untitled was created, the influential MoMA curator who would later become a distinguished professor of art history Sam Hunter observed that “David Smith has been one of the primary innovators in contemporary American sculpture, and second only to Calder, in point of time, as a pioneer in free-standing, open, metal forms” (S. Hunter, David Smith, exh. cat. Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1957. p. 4).
Smith’s achievement was to invent a sculptural language entirely his own; although influenced by European sources it was specifically an American language that was improvisatory, practical and vigorous, but also capable of an eloquent abstraction of forms. His art combined the intellectual with the sensual, all expressed in a heady sense of freedom and openness to chance discovery that comes from improvisation.
Writing about his art practice in the poetic style that he often used to express himself and describe his work, Smith boldly declared, “Masterpieces are made today. …The 20th Century has produced very many. Present day contemporary art is producing masterpieces. …I feel no tradition. I feel great spaces. I feel my own time. …I believe that my time is the most important in the world. That the art of my time is the most important art. …If you ask me why I make sculpture, I must answer that it is my way of life, my balance, and my justification for being” (D. Smith quoted in K. Stiles and P. Selz, Theories and Documents of Contemporary Art: A Sourcebook of Artists’ Writings, 2nd ed, Berkeley, Calif., 2012, p. 38).
Among the American sculptors who matured as artists in the 1930s and 1940s, “David Smith made some of the most significant contributions. …(He) created a series of works that became increasingly abstract in form and universal in content. His metal sculptures ranged from calligraphic drawings in space to solid geometric forms interpreted as poetic yet tough metaphors for American vernacular culture in the industrial age” (K. Stiles and P. Selz, ibid. p. 17).
Extending outward at right angles from the central core, smaller adjuncts reach out in either direction. If interpreted as a arboreal form, the appearance is of movement, perhaps coaxed by a slight breeze. If seen as a human form, the sculpture suggests a figure watchfully observing its surroundings. Smith pursued themes that spoke of an uneasy relationship between modernity, civilization and nature and a preoccupation with landscape and of man's place in the world.
Untitled projects an unmistakable aura of strength, stability and grace, reflective of both the artist’s own powerful personality and of the combined strength and warmth of the bronze material he chose to use for this work. The forms are suggestive of lines drawn in space, appropriate given that drawing was something Smith did on a daily basis, producing hundreds of drawings over the span of his career, using the medium to work out formal problems in sculpture.
The sculpture also displays Smith’s interest in combining solid forms with areas of open space, these voids are notable in the inverted V-shape at the sculpture’s base, and the circular form and triangular shape toward the top of the work. The areas of open space lend the sculpture a pleasing lightness, offsetting the denser central core of the piece. Indeed, exploring the ways that the individual elements interrelate is one of the central themes of this artwork, attesting to Smith’s ability to develop evocative sculptural forms via the selection and combination of diverse and distinct individual elements that seem to have developed organically.
Critics have referred to Smith’s energetic use of materials and forms as three-dimensional Abstract Expressionism, evident here in the verve and vigor of this sculpture’s contours. Untitled was created at the height of the artist’s mature period, and in the same year that Smith’s work was included in the 29th Venice Biennale. In the catalogue of a solo exhibition that the Museum of Modern Art, New York organized for the sculptor just one year before Untitled was created, the influential MoMA curator who would later become a distinguished professor of art history Sam Hunter observed that “David Smith has been one of the primary innovators in contemporary American sculpture, and second only to Calder, in point of time, as a pioneer in free-standing, open, metal forms” (S. Hunter, David Smith, exh. cat. Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1957. p. 4).
Smith’s achievement was to invent a sculptural language entirely his own; although influenced by European sources it was specifically an American language that was improvisatory, practical and vigorous, but also capable of an eloquent abstraction of forms. His art combined the intellectual with the sensual, all expressed in a heady sense of freedom and openness to chance discovery that comes from improvisation.
Writing about his art practice in the poetic style that he often used to express himself and describe his work, Smith boldly declared, “Masterpieces are made today. …The 20th Century has produced very many. Present day contemporary art is producing masterpieces. …I feel no tradition. I feel great spaces. I feel my own time. …I believe that my time is the most important in the world. That the art of my time is the most important art. …If you ask me why I make sculpture, I must answer that it is my way of life, my balance, and my justification for being” (D. Smith quoted in K. Stiles and P. Selz, Theories and Documents of Contemporary Art: A Sourcebook of Artists’ Writings, 2nd ed, Berkeley, Calif., 2012, p. 38).
Among the American sculptors who matured as artists in the 1930s and 1940s, “David Smith made some of the most significant contributions. …(He) created a series of works that became increasingly abstract in form and universal in content. His metal sculptures ranged from calligraphic drawings in space to solid geometric forms interpreted as poetic yet tough metaphors for American vernacular culture in the industrial age” (K. Stiles and P. Selz, ibid. p. 17).