Product details
- ISBN 9780714861562
- Weight: 616g
- Dimensions: 172 x 245mm
- Publication Date: 04 Mar 2013
- Publisher: Phaidon Press Ltd
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Hardback
- Language: English
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One of the best-known American sculptors of the modern period, David Smith (1906 – 1965) was a true innovator. He revolutionized the possibilities of metal sculpture by introducing the industrial process of welding and economical materials such as steel into the studio. As a result, Smith was able to manipulate metal into the most extraordinarily balanced compositions – using metal to ‘draw in space’.
Smith was a pioneer in abstract sculpture – previously a figurative medium – and achieved a new scope by creating layered planes and burnishing or painting surfaces. A reclusive figure, Smith spent increasing time at his studio and foundry at rural Bolton Landing, the surrounding fields of which became filled with his monumental sculptures. Predominantly known as a sculptor, the book also sheds light on his prolific practice of drawing, sketching, writing and photographing his sculptures.
Joan Pachner, a David Smith scholar since the 1980s, has published and lectured widely on the artist’s work. She pioneered the study of the artist’s photographs in an essay in David Smith: Photographs 1931–1965 (1998). She has also lectured and written about the artist’s life at Bolton Landing in the Adirondacks, notably the 'The Concept is Primary. he Medium is Secondary' lecture part of the programme 'A Sculptor’s Eye: David Smith & Photography' in 2006, and has contributed to such publications as The Fields of David Smith (1997) and Painted Steel: The Late Work of David Smith (1998). As an independent art historian, she specializes in modern sculpture and lectures at the Museum of Modern Art, New York.
