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
Object 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.
Cincinnati Art Museum. "Six Artists: Arp, Davis, Dubuffet, Lipchitz, Shahn, Smith," May 4–31, 1951.
Art Institute of Chicago. "60th Annual American Exhibition: Paintings and Sculpture," October 25–December 16, 1951, no. 153 (as "Song of a Landscape," for sale, $950).
University of Chicago, Bergman Gallery. "Avant-Garde Chicago: Exhibit of Contemporary Art from Chicago Collectors," opened November 11, 1968, unnumbered cat. (as "Song of a Landscape," lent by Mrs. Albert Newman).
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 (as "Song of a Landscape," lent by Muriel Kallis Newman, Chicago).
San Antonio Museum of Art. "David Smith: Painter, Sculptor, Draftsman," March 27–June 4, 1983, no. 106.
New York. Washburn. "David Smith: 'The Inspiration of Music'," February 15–March 25, 1995, unnumbered cat. (as "Song of a Landscape," lent by Ms. Muriel Kallis Newman, Chicago).
New York. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. "David Smith: A Centennial," February 3–May 14, 2006, no. 46 (lent by a private collection, Chicago).
Paris. Centre Pompidou, Musée National d'Art Moderne. "David Smith: Sculptures 1933–1964," June 14–August 21, 2006, no. 23 (lent by a private collection, Chicago).
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, O.H. 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: Corcoran Biennial Opens in Washington –Sculpture Raises Old Issue Anew." New York Times (April 1, 1951), p. 105.
Emily Genauer. "Art: 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, calls it "Song to a Landscape".
Robert M. Coates. "The Art Galleries: Signs and Symbols." New Yorker 27 (April 14, 1951), p. 61.
Emily Genauer. "Museum Shows Matta, Smith." New York Herald Tribune (September 15, 1957), p. E10.
Jane Harrison Cone and Margaret Paul inDavid 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 Guggenheim Fellowship, 1950–1951, and Application for Renewal, February, 1951." David Smith. Ed. Garnett McCoy. New York, 1973, p. 68, fig. 44, calls it "Song of a Landscape" in image caption.
Rosalind E. Krauss. The Sculpture of David Smith: A Catalogue Raisonné. New York, 1977, p. 48, no. 237, fig. 237, calls it "Song of a Landscape".
Monica Meenan. "The Vigorous Collectors." Town and Country 132 (September 1978), ill. p. 148 (installation photo, Muriel Newman's home).
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, Muriel Newman's home).
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, calls it "Song of a Landscape".
Carmen Giménez. David Smith. Exh. cat., Institut Valencia d'Art Modern. Valencia, 1996, p. 261, ill., calls it "Song of a Landscape".
Joan Pachner inDavid Smith: Photographs 1931–1965. Exh. cat., Matthew Marks Gallery. New York, 1998, p. 120 n. 32, calls it "Song of a Landscape".
Victoria Newhouse. Art and the Power of Placement. New York, 2005, fig. 164 (installation photo, Muriel Newman's home, 1990s).
Lisa M. Messinger in "Recent Acquisitions. A Selection: 2005–2006." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 64 (Fall 2006), pp. 58–59, ill. (color).
Jackie Wullschläger. "Abstract Fantasist for Industrial Age." Financial Times (November 3, 2006), p. 13.
Richard Dorment. "If You Don’t Love This, You Don’t Love Art: Richard Dorment is Bowled Over by the Steel Sculptures of David Smith." Daily Telegraph (November 7, 2006).
Nat Trotman. "David Smith: Visions of the Landscape." Guggenheim Magazine (Winter 2006), p. 16, ill. (installation photo, Bolton Landing, [N.Y.], ca. 1950, three views).
Dominique Fourcade inDavid Smith. Exh. cat., Centre Pompidou, Musée national d'art moderne, Paris. Paris, 2006, pp. 44–45, 52, 306, no. 23, ill. pp. 140–41 (color, three views, overall), 142–43 (installation photos, Bolton Landing, [N.Y.]), 306.
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. pp. 109 (color), 110 (installation photo, Bolton Landing, N.Y.).
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 York], 2021, p. 355, no. 269.
Christopher Lyon, ed. David Smith Sculpture: A Catalogue Raisonné, 1932–1965. Vol. 2, 1932–1953. [New York], 2021, p. 328, no. 269, ill. (installation photo, Bolton Landing, N.Y., 1950) and ill. p. 329.
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