 David Smith (American, 1906 - 1965) Untitled (Green Linear Nude), c. 1964 Enamel on canvas Gift of The Contemporary Museum, Honolulu, 2011, and bequest of Mary
Elizabeth Sterling, 2007 (TCM.2007.1.5) While known primarily as a sculptor who created totemic works of lines,
planes, angles and geometric forms in steel, David Smith was also interested
throughout his career in drawing and painting. Sometimes the fluid and
unpremeditated traits of these two-dimensional media served Smith’s
sculpture as generators of ideas for new forms. However, in the case of
Smith’s late paintings, referred to as the Last Nudes, a series begun in the
winter of 1963-64, he may have used them as a kind of relief or release from
the rigors of his monumental stainless steel Cubi sculptures on which he was
working during the same period. The explosive linearity and spatial openness of the Last Nudes stand in
striking contrast to the solid, rigid forms of Smith’s late sculptures, and they
offer a fascinating look at another side of Smith’s artistic mind. Smith’s Last
Nudes paintings are essentially poured drawings in the manner of Jackson
Pollock. Vigorously wrought in enamel paint squeezed from syringes or bottles
over canvases spread on the floor, these works are at once full of intense
energy but carefully controlled, expressive of emotion as well as the speed of
their execution. |