View source for Tony Smith (sculptor)

{{Short description|American sculptor, visual artist, architectural designer}}
{{Infobox artist
| name          = Tony Smith
| image         = File:Tony_Smith_with_his_sculpture_“The_Snake_Is_Out”_in_Bryant_Park_in_1967.jpg
| imagesize     = 
| caption       = Tony Smith with his sculpture ''The Snake Is Out'' in [[Bryant Park]] in 1967
| birth_name    = Anthony Peter Smith
| birth_date    = {{Birth date |1912|9|23|}}
| birth_place   = [[South Orange, New Jersey]]
| death_date    = {{death date and age |1980|12|26|1912|9|23|}}
| death_place   = 
| nationality   = [[United States of America|American]]
| field         = [[Sculpture]], [[visual arts]]
| training      = 
| movement      = 
| works         = 
| patrons       = 
| influenced by = 
| influenced    = 
| spouse        = [[Jane Lawrence]]
| awards        = 
| website       = {{URL|http://www.tonysmithestate.com/}}
|children= 3, including [[Kiki Smith]] and [[Seton Smith]]
}}
'''Anthony Peter Smith''' (September 23, 1912 &ndash; December 26, 1980) was an American [[sculptor]], [[painter]], [[architectural designer]], and a noted [[art theorist]].<ref>Oxford Dictionary of Modern and Contemporary Art, Oxford University, p. 663-664</ref> As a leading sculptor in the 1960s and 1970s, Smith is often associated with the [[Minimal art|Minimalist art]] movement.

==Education and early life==
Smith was born in [[South Orange, New Jersey]], to a [[water supply|waterworks]] manufacturing family started by his grandfather and namesake, A. P. Smith. Tony contracted [[tuberculosis]] around 1916, which lasted through much of elementary school.<ref name="About" /> In an effort to speed his recovery, protect his immune system, and protect his siblings, his family constructed a one-room prefabricated house in the backyard. He had a full-time nurse and had tutors to keep up with his school work; he sporadically attended Sacred Heart Elementary School in [[Newark, New Jersey]]. His medicine came in little boxes which he used to form cardboard constructions. Sometimes he visited the waterworks factory, marveling at the industrial production, machines and fabrication processes.<ref name="About" />

Smith commuted to [[St. Francis Xavier High School (New York City)|St. Francis Xavier High School]], a [[Jesuit]] high school in New York City.<ref name="About">{{cite web | url=http://www.tonysmithestate.com/about/chronology | title=About - Tony Smith | publisher=Tony Smith Estate/Artists Rights Society | access-date=February 4, 2018}}</ref> In the spring and summer of 1931 he attended [[Fordham University]], and in the fall enrolled at [[Georgetown University]].<ref name="About" /> Smith was disillusioned with formal education, and returned to New Jersey in January 1932, where, during the Great Depression, he opened a second-hand bookstore in Newark on Broad Street.<ref name="About"/> From 1934 to 1936, he worked days at the family factory and attended evening courses at the [[Art Students League of New York]] where he studied anatomy with [[George Bridgman]], drawing and watercolor with [[George Grosz]], and painting with [[Vaclav Vytlacil]].<ref name="About" /> In 1937, he moved to [[Chicago]] intending to study architecture at the [[New Bauhaus]], where he readily absorbed the interdisciplinary curriculum but was ultimately disillusioned. The following year, Smith began working for [[Frank Lloyd Wright]]'s [[Suntop Homes|Ardmore Project]] near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he began as a carpenter helper and bricklayer. After a brief period with Wright in [[Taliesin (studio)|Taliesin]] in [[Spring Green, Wisconsin]], Smith worked building the Armstrong House in [[Ogden Dunes, Indiana]].{{cn|date=July 2024}} This period ended when his mother fell ill in 1940 and Smith returned to New Jersey. 

==Career==
{{Main|List of Tony Smith sculptures}}
[[Image:LightUpbyTonySmithForbesCourtyard.jpg|thumb|200px|''[[Light Up (sculpture)|Light Up]]'', 1974, outside the [[Hillman Library]] at the [[University of Pittsburgh]]]]
In 1940, Smith began his career as an independent architectural designer, which lasted until the early 1960s. He built approximately twenty private homes and envisioned many unrealized projects, such as the 1950 Model [[Roman Catholic Church]], with paintings on glass by [[Jackson Pollock]] (1950). His work included homes for many in the art community, including [[Fritz Bultman]] (1945), [[Theodoros Stamos]], [[Fred Olsen]] (1951), and [[Betty Parsons]] (1959-60).<ref name="HOUSE PROUD">{{cite web | url=https://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/08/garden/house-proud-built-just-as-the-sculptor-dreamed-it.html | title=HOUSE PROUD; Built Just as the Sculptor Dreamed It | work=[[The New York Times]] | date=July 8, 2004 | access-date=February 4, 2018 | author=Steinberg, Claudia }}</ref><ref name="Virtual Globetrotting">{{cite web | url=http://virtualglobetrotting.com/map/olsen-house-by-tony-smith/ | title='Olsen House' by Tony Smith in Guilford, CT | publisher=Virtual Globetrotting | date=May 11, 2010 | access-date=February 4, 2018 | author=pmoore66}}</ref><ref name="About"/> Despite these successes, the architect-client relationship frustrated Smith enough that he gravitated toward his own artwork.<ref name="HOUSE PROUD"/>

Smith returned to the East Coast after two years in [[Hollywood, California]] (1943–45) and began teaching while developing architectural projects at the same time as developing various theoretical ideas about [[Abstract art|painting abstractly]]. He became a central member of the [[New York School (art)|New York School]] community, with ties ranging from [[Gerome Kamrowski]] to [[Jackson Pollock]], [[Barnett Newman]] and [[Mark Rothko]].<ref>Oxford Dictionary of Modern and Contemporary Art, Oxford University, p. 663-664</ref>

He lived in Germany and traveled extensively in Europe from 1953 to 1955, accompanying his wife Jane who was there as an [[opera]] singer. There he developed a new group of architectural projects and painted extensively, including the landmark group of Louisenberg paintings (1953–1955). [[Kiki Smith|Chiara "Kiki" Smith]] was born in 1954, when they were living in [[Nuremberg]]. Twins Beatrice (Bebe) and [[Seton Smith|Seton]] were born after the family returned to South Orange, in 1955.<ref>Oxford Dictionary of Modern and Contemporary Art, Oxford University, p. 663-664</ref>

Smith taught architecture and design-related classes at the Delahanty Institute (1956–57) and [[Pratt Institute]] (1957–1959), where he developed ''Throne'' (1956). This critical early work developed from a class assignment for students at Pratt to determine the simplest possible three-dimensional joint that could be stacked for more than two levels. Smith enhanced the geometrical solution of four triangular prisms by adding another joint, resulting in a new form with seven triangular prisms enclosing two tetrahedra. After some time passed, he decided that the resulting form was something other than a design exercise, so he titled it ''Throne''.

Smith then joined the faculty at [[Bennington College]] in Vermont. In 1960 a class project investigating close-packed cells based on [[D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson]]'s book ''Growth & Form'' (1918) sparked Smith's search for artistic inspiration in the natural world. The resulting agglomeration of 14-sided [[tetrakaidecahedron]]s, the ideally efficient soap-bubble cell, is known as the Bennington Structure. This was the first time Smith saw the impact that enlarged geometric shapes could have as independent but architecturally scaled forms - as sculpture.
While recovering from an automobile accident at home in 1961, Smith started to create small sculptural maquettes using agglomerations of tetrahedrons and octahedrons. By 1962 he was teaching at Hunter College.  In this year he created ''Black Box'', his first fabricated steel sculpture.  The dense rectangular prism, less than two feet high, developed from a mundane object, a 3 x 5" file card box that Smith saw on the desk of American Art critic and historian  [[Eugene Goossen|Eugene Goosen]], his colleague and friend.  Smith enlarged the proportions of the box five times, like a recent class assignment. He phoned a local fabricator, Industrial Welding, whose billboard he had seen while driving on the New Jersey Turnpike and asked them to deliver it to his suburban home. Although the welders assumed he was crazed, they treated the project with the utmost workmanship and the result was a stunning form to Smith. With this piece, entitled ''Black Box'', Smith had discovered a sculpting process that he continued to hone. Where others saw a pure geometric shape, Smith saw it as a mysterious form.  The title alluded to the corrupt administration of New York mayor Jimmy Walker (1926–32), when contractors would drop bribes into a slot in a "black" box.<ref>James Shepperd, written comments to Joan Pachner, March 13, 1991, p.4.  This accords with Smith's own note relating the ''Black Box'' to an object "For bribes or graft."</ref> ''Black Box'' was set on the site of the black wood-burning stove in the little house he had lived in as a small child, so it functioned as a kind of gravestone.{{cn|date=July 2024}} It was deliberately placed on a thin base of two-by-four inch plywood pieces to call attention to its status as a work of art.

In 1962, he made ''Die'', a 6' [[steel]] cube that established his reputation as one of the most influential and important artists of his time.<ref>Oxford Dictionary of Modern and Contemporary Art, Oxford University, p. 663</ref> ''The Elevens Are Up'' (1963) follows formally on ''Die''. Inspired by the two veins on the back of the neck which are accentuated when one has had too much to drink, the sculpture consists of two black steel masses installed face to face, four feet apart. Fabricated in steel and weighing over 12,000 pounds, the later ''Source'' (1967) is a monumental sculpture which Smith first exhibited at [[Documenta|documenta IV]] in [[Kassel, Germany]] in the summer of 1968.<ref>Tuchman, Phyllis. "Tony Smith, Master Sculptor." ''Portfolio''. Summer 1980.</ref> After exhibiting massive, black-painted [[plywood]] and [[sheet-metal|metal]] works at several sites across the United States and internationally, Smith was featured on the October 13, 1967 cover of ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]'' with his plywood structure ''Smoke'' (1967)<ref name="gugg1">[http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/collections/collection-online/show-full/bio/?artist_name=Tony%20Smith&page=1&f=Name&cr=1 Tony Smith] [[Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum]], New York.</ref> enveloping the atrium of the [[Corcoran Gallery of Art]] in Washington.<ref>Carol Vogel (February 1, 2008), [https://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/01/arts/design/01voge.html Monumental Gesture at Renovated Museum] ''[[New York Times]]''.</ref>

Allied with the [[minimalism|minimalist school]], Smith worked with simple geometrical modules combined on a three-dimensional grid, creating drama through simplicity and scale. During the 1940s and 1950s Smith became close friends with [[Barnett Newman]], [[Jackson Pollock]], [[Mark Rothko]], and [[Clyfford Still]]. His sculpture shows their abstract influence. One of Smith's unrealized architectural projects in 1950 was a plan for a church that was to have painted glass panels designed in collaboration with his friend Pollock.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.artnews.com/2012/09/13/jacksonsotheractions/ | title=Jackson's Other Actions: Pollock's Sculptures Resurface | work=[[ARTnews]] | date= September 13, 2012 | access-date=February 4, 2018 | author=Cembalest, Robin}}</ref>

Smith also taught at various institutions including [[New York University]], [[Cooper Union]], [[Pratt Institute]], [[Bennington College]], and [[Hunter College]], where he mentored artists such as [[Pat Lipsky]].

Smith was asked to teach a sculpture course at the [[University of Hawaii]] in [[Manoa, Hawaii|Manoa]] during the summer of 1969. He designed two unrealized works, ''Haole Crater'' (a recessed garden) and ''Hubris,'' but eventually created ''The Fourth Sign'' that was sited on the campus. His Hawaii experience also generated fodder for his "For..." series whose initials are friends and artists he met during his time in Manoa.

==Exhibitions==
[[Image:'The Fourth Sign', painted steel sculpture by Tony Smith, 1976, University of Hawaii at Manoa.JPG|thumb|200px|''[[The Fourth Sign]]'', 1977, at the [[University of Hawaii at Manoa]]]]

Smith's first exhibitions were in 1964, and he had his first one-person exhibition in 1966. That same year, was asked to anchor the seminal 1966 show at the [[Jewish Museum (Manhattan)|Jewish Museum]] in New York entitled ''[[Primary Structures (1966 exhibition)|Primary Structures]],'' one of the most important exhibitions of the 1960s.<ref>"Master of Monumentalists." ''Time''. 13 October 1967, pp. Cover & 80-86.</ref> Smith's museum debut as a sculptor of large-scale, geometric sculpture was at the [[Wadsworth Atheneum]], [[Hartford, Connecticut]], and the [[Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia|Institute of Contemporary Art]], [[University of Pennsylvania]], Philadelphia (1966), followed by a nationwide traveling exhibition that began at the [[Andrew Dickson White House]], [[Cornell University]] in [[Ithaca, New York]] (1968), and a New Jersey–based traveling show organized by the [[Newark Museum]] and [[New Jersey State Council on the Arts]] (1970).<ref name="gugg1"/>

A major retrospective, "Tony Smith: Architect, Painter, Sculptor," was held at the [[Museum of Modern Art]] in [[New York City|New York]] in 1998, including his architecture, painting, and sculpture. A European retrospective followed in 2002, arranged by the [[Institut Valencià d'Art Modern]], [[Spain]] and the [[Menil Collection]], [[Houston, Texas|Houston]], organized a retrospective of Smith's works on paper in 2010.<ref>''Tony Smith''. Timothy Taylor Gallery. September 3 - October 4, 2013, London.</ref> Smith was also included in a Guggenheim International Exhibition, New York (1967); the [[Venice Biennale]] (1968); [[Documenta|documenta 4]], Kassel, Germany (1968); Whitney Annual, [[Whitney Museum of American Art]], New York (1966, 1970, and 1971); and [[Whitney Biennial]], New York (1973).<ref name="gugg1"/>

September 23, 2012 marked the one hundredth anniversary of Smith's birth. Institutions around the world celebrated his centennial with special events, including a daylong symposium at the [[National Gallery of Art]], a panel discussion at the [[Seattle Art Museum]], an outdoor sculpture installation at [[Bryant Park]] in New York, and the exhibition "Kiki Smith, Seton Smith, Tony Smith: A Family of Artists", which opened at the [[Kunsthalle Bielefeld]], Germany, that day.<ref>[http://www.matthewmarks.com/new-york/exhibitions/2012-09-07_tony-smith_1/ Tony Smith: Source, September 7 - October 27, 2012] [[Matthew Marks Gallery]], New York.</ref>

==Collections==
Smith's work is included in most leading international public collections, including the [[Museum of Modern Art]], New York; [[Menil Collection]], Houston; the [[Empire State Plaza#Art collection|Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller Empire State Plaza Art Collection]], Albany, NY; [[Walker Art Center]], [[Minneapolis]]; [[Louisiana Museum of Modern Art]], [[Fredensborg Municipality|Humlebæk, Denmark]]; and the [[Kröller-Müller Museum]], [[Otterlo]], the Netherlands.<ref>[http://www.matthewmarks.com/new-york/artists/tony-smith/ Tony Smith] [[Matthew Marks Gallery]], New York/[[Los Angeles]].</ref> In 2003, the [[National Gallery of Art]] in Washington acquired one of four casts of Smith's first steel sculpture, ''Die'', created in 1962 and fabricated in 1968, from [[Paula Cooper Gallery]].<ref>Vogel, Carol. [https://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/02/arts/inside-art.html "Inside Art"] ''[[New York Times]]'. 2 May 2003'.</ref>

''Smoke'' (1967) currently fills the 60-foot high [[atrium (architecture)|atrium]] leading into the [[Los Angeles County Museum of Art]]’s Ahmanson Building; the museum purchased the work in 2010.<ref>Finkel, Jori, [http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2010/06/tony-smiths-monumental-sculpture-smoke-will-not-disappear-from-lacma-multimilliondollar-purchase-fin.html "Tony Smith's monumental sculpture 'Smoke' will not disappear from LACMA."] ''[[New York Times]]''. 18 June 2010.</ref>

The estate of Tony Smith is currently represented by [[Pace Gallery]] in New York.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.artnews.com/2017/03/01/pace-now-represents-the-estate-of-tony-smith/|title=Pace Now Represents the Estate of Tony Smith|last=Freeman|first=Nate|date=2017-03-01|website=ARTnews|language=en-US|access-date=2018-06-18}}</ref>

==Private life==
Smith met his wife, opera singer and actress [[Jane Lawrence]], in New York in 1943. They moved to Los Angeles and were married in Santa Monica, with [[Tennessee Williams]] as the only witness.<ref name="About"/>

He was the father of artists [[Kiki Smith|Chiara "Kiki" Smith]], [[Seton Smith]], and the underground actress Beatrice "Bebe" Smith (Seton's twin, who died in 1988).

In 1961, Smith was injured in a car accident and subsequently developed [[polycythemia]], a blood condition which produces a large number of red blood cells. His health was always in question and deteriorated until he succumbed to a [[heart attack]] at age 68 on December 26, 1980.<ref name="About"/> At the time of his death, he and his family resided in [[South Orange, New Jersey]].

==See also==
*[[Environmental sculpture]]
*[[List of sculptures by Tony Smith]]
*[[Wikipedia:WikiProject Public art/TheArtistResearchProject/TonySmith|The Tony Smith Artist Research Project]]

==References==
{{Reflist|2}}

==Further reading==
*Busch, Julia M., [http://www.worldcatlibraries.org/wcpa/ow/4ed0b0bd878eaf2a.html ''A Decade of Sculpture: the New Media in the 1960s''] (The Art Alliance Press: Philadelphia; [http://www.aupresses.com/ Associated University Presses]: [[London]], 1974) {{ISBN|0-87982-007-1}}
*Charlot, John, "Tony Smith in Hawai'i", ''The Journal of Intercultural Studies'', University of Hawai'i Press, No. 30 2003
*Shortliffe, Mark (coordinator), ''Not an Object. Not a Monument. The Complete Large-Scale Sculpture of Tony Smith'' ([[Matthew Marks Gallery]]: New York; 2007) {{ISBN|978-3-86521-313-6}}
*Storr, Robert, ''Tony Smith: Architect Painter Sculptor'' (Museum of Modern Art: New York; 1998) {{ISBN|0-87070-071-5}}
*Chasnick, Ilya, [[Ellsworth Kelly]], [[Kasimir Malevich]], [[Ad Reinhardt]], David Smith, and Tony Smith. "Of Absence and Presence: April 23-May 24, 1986." ([[Kent Fine Art]]: New York; 1986).
*Thalacker, Donald W. ''The Place of Art in the World of Architecture'', Chelsea House Publishers, New York, 1980. {{ISBN|0-87754-098-5}}.

==External links==
{{Commons category|Tony Smith (sculptor)}}
*[http://www.tonysmithestate.com/ www.tonysmithestate.com]
*[http://www.artnet.com/magazine_pre2000/features/tuchman/tuchman7-14-98.asp#11 Tony Smith Biography] @ artnet.com
*[http://www.nga.gov/content/ngaweb/Collection/artist-info.1884.html Tony Smith Biography] @ nga.gov
*[https://content.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,1101671013,00.html?internalid=AC ''Time Magazine'' Oct 13, 1967]
*[https://www.flickr.com/photos/poethelena/2547902064/ ''Free Ride'' in situ at Clos Pegase]

{{Tony Smith}}
{{Minimal art}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Smith, Tony}}
[[Category:20th-century American sculptors]]
[[Category:20th-century American male artists]]
[[Category:American male sculptors]]
[[Category:American abstract artists]]
[[Category:American contemporary artists]]
[[Category:Contemporary sculptors]]
[[Category:Minimalist artists]]
[[Category:American modern artists]]
[[Category:Sculptures by Tony Smith|*]]
[[Category:1912 births]]
[[Category:1980 deaths]]
[[Category:Sculptors from New Jersey]]
[[Category:Art Students League of New York alumni]]
[[Category:Georgetown University alumni]]
[[Category:Hunter College faculty]]
[[Category:Artists from South Orange, New Jersey]]
[[Category:Sculptors from New York (state)]]
[[Category:Cooper Union faculty]]