David Smith

Disciplines Art Modern & Contemporary Art

About the Book

This comprehensive sourcebook is destined to become a lasting and definitive reference on the art and aesthetic philosophy of the American artist David Smith (1906–1965). A pioneer of twentieth-century modernism, Smith was renowned for the expansive formal and conceptual ambitions of his broadly diverse and inventive welded-steel abstractions. His groundbreaking achievements drew freely on cubism, surrealism, and constructivism, profoundly influencing later movements such as minimalism and environmental art. By radically challenging older conventions of monolithic figuration and refuting arbitrary distinctions between painters and sculptors, Smith asserted sculpture’s equal role in advancing modern art.

This compilation of Smith’s poems, sketchbook notes, essays, lectures, letters to the editor, reviews, and interviews underscores the ways his writing articulated his private identity and promoted the social ideals that made him a key participant in contemporary discourses surrounding modernism, art and politics, and sculptural aesthetics. Each text is annotated by Susan J. Cooke with historical and contextual information that reflects Smith’s process of continually reviewing and revising his writings in response to his evolving aspirations as a visual artist.

From Our Blog

A David Smith Reading List

“Art has its tradition, but it is a visual heritage. The artist’s language is the memory from sight. Art is made from dreams, and visions, and things not known, and least of …

About the Author

Susan J. Cooke is Associate Director of the Estate of David Smith. Formerly an Associate Curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, she is the author of essays on David Smith, Jean Dubuffet, and Ralston Crawford.

Reviews

“The David Smith that emerges here is impossible to simplify. He is learned and curious. He is obsessive, embattled, contradictory, and fierce. He is an artist of the utmost seriousness and commitment. By making available the persistence and intensity of his intellectual and aesthetic concerns over thirty years, this volume will dramatically alter the way one of America’s greatest artists is understood. It will be welcomed by artists, art historians, and critics, as well as those interested in the artistic process and how Smith and his generation defined themselves in relation to, and often against, the art world and society.”—Michael Brenson, art critic, art historian, and member of the sculpture faculty of Bard College’s Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts

“This volume is the first comprehensive edition of David Smith’s writings, and it makes an important and authoritative contribution to the study of modernism. Susan Cooke has unearthed new materials from the archives and tracked down all published writings to represent Smith’s authorial voice in its range and scope. By presenting Smith’s writings in their diversity—private, poetic notes, teaching documents, and public statements—the book introduces Smith’s craft of writing as heterogeneous and profound. This will be an immensely valuable resource for years to come.”—Sarah Hamill, Assistant Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art at Sarah Lawrence College

Acknowledgments
A Note on the Texts
Introduction

THIRTIES AND FORTIES
Media: The Materials of the Artist, by Max Doerner, 1935
Current Exhibitions: Abstract Painting in America, 1935
In America You Feel, 1935–36
An Expression of Emotion That Cannot Be Put into Words, 1935–36
The Concept Is Primary, 1938–39
The Architect Should Be Able to Judge, 1939–40
Modern Sculpture and Society, 1939–40
Abstract Art in America, 1940
Medals for Dishonor, Responses to Questions from Elizabeth McCausland, 1940
Sculpture: Art Forms in Architecture—New Techniques Affect Both, 1940
Medals for Dishonor, 1940
The Recurrences of Totemism, c. 1945
The Visual Arts, 1945
I Have Erected a Solid, c. 1945
A River Mts, c. 1945
The Sculpture Produces an Environment, c. 1945
To Keep from Becoming Enslaved, c. 1945
The Technique, Brushstrokes, Chisel Marks, c. 1946
Landscape Fish Clouds, 1946–47
The Question—What Is Your Hope, c. 1947
One of the Early Impressions, c. 1947
Lecture, Skidmore College, 1947
The Landscape; Spectres Are; Sculpture Is, 1947
Design for Progress—Cockfight, 1947
The Sculptor’s Relationship to the Museum, Dealer, and Public, 1947
The Golden Eagle—A Recital; Robinhood’s Barn, 1948
Foreword, Dorothy Dehner: Drawings, Paintings, 1948

FIFTIES
Report for Interim Week, 1950
Statement, Herald Tribune Forum, 1950
Sculpture Hopes to Be, 1950
Notes on Books, 1950
The Question—What Are Your Influences, 1950
Autobiographical Notes, 1950
What I Believe about the Teaching of Sculpture, 1950
The Flight Paths of Birds Moths Insects, 1950–51
Notes—Watch a Torn Sheet, c. 1951
What Happens to Barnyard Grass, 1951
Foreword—(Apology of a Juryman), 1951
Notes on Seven Sculptures, 1951
Progress Report and Application for Renewal of Guggenheim Fellowship, 1951
And So This Being the Happiest—Is Disappointing, 1951
Notes for Elaine de Kooning, 1951
The Joint Is Foul with Smoke, 1951
Sketchbook Notes: The Red of Rust; The Metaphor of a Symbol; The Position for Vision; Reading, 1951–52
Sketchbook Notes: Music; The Cloud; Space; And in the Best of Squares, 1951–52
Lecture, Williams College, 1951
Problems of the Contemporary Sculptor, 1952
The Language Is Image, 1952
The New Sculpture, 1952
Atmosphere of Early ’30s, 1952
A Head Is a Drawing, c. 1952
The Modern Sculptor and His Materials, 1952
I Have Seen Some Critics, 1952
Lecture, Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, 1952
Lecture, Fourth Annual Woodstock Art Conference, 1952
Relative to Tanktotem I (Pouring), 1952
How Far Away from Imitation of Reality, 1952
Statement, WNYC Radio, 1952
Who Is the Artist?, 1952
Notes on Details—Technical, c. 1952–53
Do We Dare to Do Bad Works, 1952–53
Sometimes a Drawing Gets Too Complete, 1953
Lecture, Portland Art Museum, 1953
Books: African Classics for the Modern, 1953
Sketchbook Notes: From the Textures; The Part to the Whole; There Is Something Rather Noble About Junk, 1953
Notes While Driving, 1953
The Artist and Art in America, 1953
I Sat Near My Window, 1953
Thoughts on Sculpture, 1953
Symposium: Art and Religion, 1953
How Little I Know, 1953–54
The Artist’s Image, 1954
Notes from a Sketchbook Titled “Nature,” 1954
Second Thoughts on Sculpture, 1954
The Artist, the Critic, and the Scholar, 1954
Tradition, 1954
Lecture, Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, 1954
Contribution by the Aesthetician, 1954–55
Defi ne Technique, c. 1955
Editions, Duplication, c. 1955
It Has Got to Make Big, 1955
Notes—Improvised Upon, 1955
To Make a Mark, 1955
The Artist in Society, 1955
Drawing, 1955
And Drawings before the Etching or the Print, 1955
Sketch—Oil Painting—The Infl uence—The Historian, c. 1956
González: First Master of the Torch, 1956
Lecture, Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, 1956
Sketchbook Notes: He May Be Intuitive Enough to Make It; Nothing Put Down with Force and Conviction Is Meaningless, 1957
Sculpture and Architecture, 1957
Selden Rodman, Conversation with David Smith, 1957
False Statements; Editor’s Letters, 1957
Contemporary Sculpture and Architecture, 1957
Letters: American Art at the Met, 1958
Is Today’s Artist With or Against the Past?, 1958
Culture and the Ideal of Perfection, 1959
Lecture, Ohio State University, 1959

SIXTIES
Notes on My Work, 1960
Interview by David Sylvester, 1960
Thoughts Travel and Come Unexpectedly, 1960
Memories to Myself, 1960
A Protest Against Vandalism; Letters; Rescue Operation, 1960
What Is the Triumph, 1961
Letter to the Board of Trustees of the Carnegie Institute, 1961
Collective Concept, 1961
Interview by Katharine Kuh, 1962
Sculpture Today, 1962
Sketchbook Notes: The Great Decision; To Think—To Dream; I Do Not Care for the Home Environment, 1962
Sketchbook Notes: The Found Object; Isn’t It Good, 1962
Letter to David Sylvester, 1962
Report on Voltri, 1962–63
A Bin Full of Balls, c. 1963 365
Sketchbook Notes: CUBE III; Drawings Are a Change; Once in a Lifetime You Meet an Ironworks; You Rule Your Own World, 1962–63
Jim and Minnie Ball, c. 1963
I Like to Eat, c. 1964
Interview by Thomas B. Hess, 1964
The Subject Is Me, c. 1964
Interview by Marian Horosko, 1964
Interview by Frank O’Hara, 1964
Some Late Words from David Smith, 1964

Chronology
List of Illustration Credits
Index