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Artist or Maker: David Smith (1906-1965)
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Provenance: Acquired directly from the artist, July 1958
By descent to the present owner
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Exhibited: New York, Willard Gallery, David Smith: New Sculpture, January-February 1953, n.p., no. 13 (illustrated).
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Literature: S. Geist, "A Smith as Draftsman," Art Digest, vol. 28, no. 7, January, 1954, p. 14.
R. Krauss, The Sculpture of David Smith: A Catalogue Raisonné, New York, 1977, p. 60, no. 291 (illustrated).
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Notes: Some critics refer to certain pieces of my sculpture as "two-dimensional." Others call it "line drawing." I do not admit to this, either conceptually or physically. It may be true in part, but only as one attribute of many, and that by intention and purpose. There are not rules in sculpture. This particular criticism is not sufficient or valid grounds for dismissal.
I make no apologies for my end views. They are as important as they are intended to be. If a sculpture could be a line drawing, then speculate that a line drawing removed from its paper bond and viewed from the side would be a beautiful thing, one which I would delight in seeing the work of other artists.
-- David Smith (Cited in R. Krauss, The Sculpture of David Smith: A Catalogue Raisonne, New York, 1977, pp. 59-60).
9/11/53 is an elegant work from the Drawings series that Smith executed in 1953. These works grew from a lecture the artist gave at Tulane University in March of that year, where he addressed the subject of drawing. "Drawings remain the life force of the artist," he added, "Especially is this true for the sculptor who of necessity works in media slow to take realization, and where the original creative impetus must be maintained during labor, drawing is the fast-moving search which keeps physical labor in balance." (D. Smith cited in ibid., p. 59). Revealing the recurrent cross-pollination between two- and three- dimensions in his work, Smith made the first of this series of sculptures that month. Giving each of the works titles by the day, month and year of completion, Smith adopted a practice usually used for works on paper.
9/11/53 was included in Smith's solo show at the Willard Gallery of January 5-30, 1954, along with several of important works from his Drawings series. Writing to express interest in Smith's work in March 1958, the present owners made 9/11/53 the first of several purchases from Smith. Acquired directly from the artist in his studio Terminal Iron Works in Bolton Landing, New York and cherished within the same collection for almost half a century, 9/11/53 is an impeccable work that is fresh to the market. The owners' friendship with Smith resulted in a collection of personal letters and memorabilia which provide further insight into this remarkable artist.
A pioneer Abstract Expressionist, Smith's work has had far-reaching consequences for the direction of American sculpture, rank with the achievements of Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning in painting. Smith absorbed European influences, but true to the spirit of American individualism, forged a unique aesthetic that reached maturity in the early 1950s. Among his best known sculptural series of this decade (which includes the Agricolas and the Sentinels), the Drawings is one of major historical importance.
The artist's breakthrough came after seeing the welded iron sculpture of Pablo Picasso and Julio Gonzalez in Cahier d'Art. Smith had acquired welding experience from a stint at a Studebaker automotive plant in the summer of 1925 and subsequently at the Terminal Iron Works in Brooklyn, and immediately identified with this novel sculptural process. His precocious vision allowed him to realize that sculpture could be conceived as an open integration of positive and negative space rather than in its conventional carved, solid, weighty form. Additionally, welding enabled the use of unorthodox industrial materials such as iron and steel, sometimes in the form of disused scraps.
Originally trained as a painter at the Arts Student League, Smith's sculptural practice introduced two-dimensionality in a number of ways, not least in the planarity and linearity of his work. Additionally, his methods incorporated drawing: he made sketches on paper and later, made full-size drawings directly with pieces of iron on the floor; arranging and re-arranging them to achieve his desired composition.
Smith's innovative process resulted in sculpture that was frontal and largely oriented towards one principal perspective, rather than seen in the round as with traditional work. Aware of his break with convention, he stated in 1952: "for a sculpture, I don't see it from five different angles at once. I see one view. Contemporary sculpture is anything a contemporary sculptor wants to make it." Smith was able to adapt the allover linear scrawls of Pollock's drip paintings, which also assimilated positive and negative space into the compositional whole, thereby creating welded iron sculptures that were "drawings in space."
9/11/53 was conceived after his groundbreaking Australia (1951) that is currently in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art and Hudson River Landscape (1951) that is currently in the permanent collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art. 9/11/53 follows closely in their format, albeit in a smaller table-top size. Like these earlier pieces, the work is composed of linear pieces of steel welded together on a single plane. A vertical spine anchored to the base supports a long, spindly horizontal beam that sprouts multi-directional limbs at its ends. Relieving the cross-like symmetry, an attenuated curved beam supported at the base intersects the cross, growing additional extensions at its ends. As was his practice with Australia (which resembles a "huge insectorial bird") and Hudson River Landscape (which resembles a landscape), Smith bridges abstraction and figuration. 9/11/53 resembles a willowy tree or perhaps an Adirondack mountain range, but is at the same a work of formally reductive beauty. Radiating airiness on account of its open structure, 9/11/53 has an almost weightless ephemeral quality that perfectly resonates with its conception as a drawing and belies its material of industrial steel.
The centennial of Smith's birth, commemorated earlier this year in shows of his drawings and sculptures at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Centre George Pompidou in Paris and the Tate Modern in London, draws our attention to the novel ways in which the remarkable artist merged the two mediums of sculpture and painting. Embodying this central trait, 9/11/53 is a quintessential example of Smith's distinct version of "drawings in space."
