David Smith was the sculptor most closely associated with the Abstract Expressionist movement. While in college, he worked one summer as a welder at an automobile factory, where his understanding and love for industrial materials and techniques took root. After moving to New York in 1926, he met the Russian émigré artist John D. Graham who introduced him to the welded sculptures of Julio González and Pablo Picasso, which proved formative to Smith’s artistic practice. In 1932, Smith installed a forge and anvil in his studio at Bolton Landing in the Adirondacks, New York. Stocked with large amounts of raw material, the artist started creating three-dimensional objects from wood, wire, scavenged metal, and other machine parts but soon gravitated to using an oxyacetylene torch to make arguably the first welded steel constructions in America. He conceived of these forged and welded sculptures as drawings in space. Through them, he explored a new spatial reality through the concepts of transparency and weightlessness, in opposition to the traditional method of working from bronze casts.
Song of the Landscape exemplifies his technique of welding together thin rods and other metal pieces to achieve a balanced structural tension between mass and weightlessness. Although the work is mostly abstract, a few descriptive details are recognizable, such as the vine climbing through what appear to be windows. Smith often tried to evoke the beauty he found in the natural surroundings of the Hudson River Valley.
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Artwork Details
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Title:Song of the Landscape
Artist:David Smith (American, Decatur, Indiana 1906–1965 Bennington, Vermont)
Date:1950
Medium:Iron and bronze, on wood base
Dimensions:19 × 32 × 19 1/2 in., 30.1 lb. (48.3 × 81.3 × 49.5 cm, 13.7 kg)
Classification:Sculpture
Credit Line:The Muriel Kallis Steinberg Newman Collection, Gift of Muriel Kallis Newman, 2006
Accession Number:2006.32.58
Inscription: Signed and dated (incised on steel plate, on base): David Smith / 1950
[Willard Gallery, New York, until 1951; sold in December 1951 to Steinberg]; Muriel Kallis Steinberg, Chicago (1951–2006; her gift to MMA)
New York. Willard Gallery. "David Smith," March 27–April 21, 1951, no. 4.
Art Institute of Chicago. "60th Annual American Exhibition: Paintings and Sculpture," October 25–December 16, 1951, no. 153.
University of Chicago, Bergman Gallery. "Avant-Garde Chicago: Exhibit of Contemporary Art from Chicago Collectors," opened November 11, 1968, unnumbered cat.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "An American Choice: The Muriel Kallis Steinberg Newman Collection," May 21–September 27, 1981, unnumbered cat. (p. 61).
Washington, D.C. Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution. "David Smith: Painter, Sculptor, Draftsman," November 4, 1982–January 2, 1983, no. 106.
San Antonio Museum of Art. "David Smith: Painter, Sculptor, Draftsman," March 27–June 4, 1983, no. 106.
New York. Washburn Gallery. "David Smith: 'The Inspiration of Music'," February 15–March 25, 1995, unnumbered cat.
New York. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. "David Smith: A Centennial," February 3–May 14, 2006, no. 46.
Paris. Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou. "David Smith: Sculptures, 1933–1964," June 14–September 11, 2006, no. 306.
London. Tate Modern. "David Smith: A Centennial," October 25, 2006–January 14, 2007, no. 46.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Abstract Expressionism and Other Modern Works: The Muriel Kallis Steinberg Newman Collection in The Metropolitan Museum of Art," September 17, 2007–February 3, 2008, extended to March 2, 2008, no. 34.
Columbus, Oh. Wexner Center for the Arts. "David Smith: Cubes and Anarchy," January 28–April 15, 2012, no catalogue.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Drawing without Paper: Selections from The Met Collection," March 12–September 18, 2022, no catalogue.
A. L. Chanin. "The World of Art: Art of C.I.O. Steelworker Seen in Audacious New Show." New York Daily Compass (April 1, 1951), p. 25.
Howard Devree. "At Opposite Poles." New York Times (April 1, 1951), p. 105.
Emily Genauer. "Some Themes of the Machine Age." New York Herald Tribune (April 1, 1951), sec. 4, p. 7.
Belle Krasne. "Three Who Carry the Acetylene Torch of Modernism." Art Digest 25 (April 15, 1951), p. 15.
Emily Genauer. "Museum Shows Matta, Smith." New York Herald Tribune (September 15, 1957), p. E10.
Jane Harrison Cone. David Smith, 1906–1965: A Retrospective Exhibition. Exh. cat., Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University. Cambridge, Mass., 1966, p. 71, no. 185.
David Smith. David Smith. Ed. Cleve Gray. New York, 1968, p. 73, calls it "Songs of the Landscape".
David Smith. "Progress Report on Guggeheim Fellowship, 1950–1951, and Application for Renewal, February 1951." David Smith. Ed. Garnett McCoy. New York, 1973, p. 68, fig. 44.
Rosalind E. Krauss. The Sculpture of David Smith: A Catalogue Raisonné. New York, 1977, p. 48, no. 237, fig. 237.
Monica Meenan. "The Vigorous Collectors." Town and Country 132 (September 1978), ill. p. 148.
Judith Goldman. "Collecting in Chicago: 'Love Affairs with Art'." Art News 78 (February 1979), p. 49.
Hilton Kramer. "Modernist Show Moves Met Firmly into Art of 20th Century." New York Times (May 22, 1981), pp. C1, C21.
M. W. Newman. "Chicago." Franklin Mint Almanac 12 (July–August 1981), ill. p. 20 (color, installation photo).
William Agee. "Muriel Kallis Newman–Life Among the Moderns." Architectural Digest 43 (December 1986), p. 66.
Lowery Stokes Sims inThe Landscape in Twentieth-Century American Art: Selections from The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Exh. cat., American Federation of Arts. New York, 1991, p. 155, fig. 14.
Pepe Karmel. "David Smith: 'The Inspiration of Music'." New York Times (March 3, 1995), p. C21.
Carmen Giménez. David Smith. Exh. cat., Institut Valencia d'Art Modern. Valencia, 1996, p. 261, ill.
Joan Pachner inDavid Smith: Photographs, 1932–1965. Exh. cat., Matthew Marks Gallery. New York, 1998, p. 120 n. 32.
Victoria Newhouse. Art and the Power of Placement. New York, 2005, fig. 164 (installation photo, Newman home).
Lisa M. Messinger in "Recent Acquisitions. A Selection: 2005–2006." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 64 (Fall 2006), pp. 58–59, ill. (color).
Sarah Kianovsky inAbstract Expressionism and Other Modern Works: The Muriel Kallis Steinberg Newman Collection in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Ed. Gary Tinterow, Lisa Mintz Messinger, and Nan Rosenthal. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2007, pp. 108–11, no. 34, ill. (color).
Roberta Smith. "A Collector's Keen Eye for Modernists." New York Times (September 21, 2007), p. E36.
Jennifer A. McComas. "The West After 1800." Masterworks from the Indiana University Art Museum. Ed. Linda J. Baden. Bloomington, 2007, p. 348.
Susan J. Cooke, ed. David Smith: Collected Writings, Lectures, and Interviews. Oakland, 2018, pp. 117, 121, 124 n 3.
Christopher Lyon, ed. David Smith Sculpture: A Catalogue Raisonné, 1932–1965. Vol. 1, Essays, Chronology, References. New Haven, 2021, p. 355, no. 269.
Christopher Lyon, ed. David Smith Sculpture: A Catalogue Raisonné, 1932–1965. Vol. 2, 1932–1953. New Haven, 2021, no. 269, p. 328, ill. pp. 328 (installation photo, Bolton Landing, 1950), 329.
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