David Smith’s “Drawings in Space”
This year marks the centennial of the birth of David Smith, one of the most celebrated sculptors of the twentieth century. In celebration, the Guggenheim Museum in New York has mounted a special exhibition of his work.
In the spiral interior of the Guggenheim Museum, designed by another twentieth century giant, Frank Lloyd Wright, Smith’s dark metal sculptures look, as the exhibition curator says, like “drawings in space”.
In addition to introducing visitors to some of Smith’s less familiar works, the exhibition traces his life path, including souvenirs from his early travels in Europe, where he encountered the work of contemporary artists like Picasso, Giacometti, and Julio Gonzalez. In his early work, Smith incorporated found objects; but later his work became more and more influenced by nature and organic forms. Living in upstate New York, with lots of open space, his work took on the monumental scale that we associate with his most familiar sculptures.
This exhibition enables us to see the elements of grace and delicacy that inform Smith’s best work, and to better understand his place in American Modernism.
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