Word: smith
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Most of the paintings, drawings, prints and photographs in the small but representative exhibit are the result of collaboration between the artist and Lois Orswell, a long-time collector of his work. Born in Decatur, Indiana, Smith had scarcely any exposure to the artistic community until he met painter Dorothy Dehner in the mid-1920s. After working in factories, Smith wished to bridge the world of industrial manufacturing and high...
Inspired by the welded works of Picasso and Gonzalez. Smith followed their work in the journal Cahiers d' Art while pursuing his own experiments in non-representational sculptural forms. Always fascinated by the technical craft of sculpture as well as its form, he studied European sculpture closely, even analyzing fragments of ancient Greek statuary...
This concern with craft is readily apparent in all the pieces on display at the Fogg. Traces of solder mark every metal juncture on these pieces--even in the monumentally minimalistic "5 1/2" (1956). Stung by several critics' refusal to consider pieces created by industrial welding as art, Smith persistently defended his technique. The fancifully chaotic composition of "Bird" (1957) further evokes the spirit of an artist unwilling to bow to convention...
Additional reflection reveals Smith's passion and artistry in grappling with larger social concerns. The brilliant "Fish" (1950), composed of welded steel in the aftermath of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, grippingly conveys the horrors of war in the nuclear age. Smith's composition, covered entirely with a cadmium red paint that is both mundane and menacing, forcefully aggregates scraps of metal and designed objects into a figure that evokes both the atom and our fear of its power. A core of barbs and chain links lies at the center of the work, surrounded by two askew rectangles of jagged metal forms...
...scorn for elitism also informed Smith's ambivalent response to the praise he ultimately garnered from the artistic community. Some critics have argued that Smith's stormy relations with contemporary artistic "authorities" represented a refusal to fit his work within the contemporary parameters of art discourse. But after viewing this exhibit, it becomes clearer that Smith's concerns were more specific than simply a complete rejection of artistic aspirations...