More than any other artist of his generation, David Smith brought American sculpture to international attention. He combined the teachings of European art history with American know-how. Smith derived formal structures from Cubism and Constructivism, added playfulness and symbolism from Surrealism, and found physical freedom in Expressionism. His blue-collar training as a steelworker brought a rugged and practical perspective to his work. The iron sculptures of Pablo Picasso and Julio González gave Smith the confidence and inspiration to use iron and steel, mediums he had previously associated with manual labor.
By the end of his career, Smith was exploring the medium itself as a theme: how steel interacts with sunlight, how negative space defines form, how lines in space may suggest human shapes. His final and most celebrated series, Cubi, is the mature realization of Smith's elegant and powerful geometry. Cubi XXIII is a study in light and mass; it does not so much occupy space as illuminate it.
In 1965 the museum was planning one of its earliest exhibitions, a show of Smith's sculpture, when the artist died in a car accident. The exhibition became a memorial to the man and his work.
Excerpted from Los Angeles County Museum of Art (World of Art series). Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; London: Thames & Hudson, 2003.
