"An essential account of America's greatest sculptor . . . [A]
magnum opus." --Marjorie Perloff, The Times Literary Supplement
**
The landmark biography of the inscrutable and brilliant David Smith, the
greatest American sculptor of the twentieth century.**
David Smith, a pioneer of Abstract Expressionism, did more than any
other sculptor of his era to bring the plastic arts to the forefront of
the American scene. Central to his project of reimagining sculptural
experience was challenging the stability of any identity or
position--Smith sought out the unbounded, unbalanced, and unexpected,
creating works of art that seem to undergo radical shifts as the
spectator moves from one point of view to another. So groundbreaking and
prolific were his contributions to American art that by the time Smith
was just forty years old, Clement Greenberg was already calling him "the
greatest sculptor this country has produced."
Michael Brenson's David Smith: The Art and Life of a Transformational
Sculptor is the first biography of this epochal figure. It follows
Smith from his upbringing in the Midwest, to his heady early years in
Manhattan, to his decision to establish a permanent studio in Bolton
Landing in upstate New York, where he would create many of his most
significant works--among them the Cubis, Tanktotems, and Zigs. It
explores his at times tempestuous personal life, marked by marriages,
divorces, and fallings-out as well as by deep friendships with fellow
artists like Helen Frankenthaler and Robert Motherwell. His wife Jean
Freas described him as "salty and bombastic, jumbo and featherlight,
thin-skinned and Mack Truck. And many more things." This enormous,
contradictory vitality was true of his work as well. He was a bricoleur,
a master welder, a painter, a photographer, and a writer, and he
entranced critics and attracted admirers wherever he showed his work.
With this book, Brenson has contextualized Smith for a new generation
and confirmed his singular place in the history of American art.
