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Lot Essay
David Smith centered his artistic practice in marking space by embedding welded forms within it. Three Deities, 1959 is an exceptional example of the artist's drive to create works in which "space becomes solid, and solids become transparent. ...where 'mass is energy, space is energy, space is mass'" (D. Smith, "Aesthetics, the Artist, and his Audience," quoted in G. McCoy, David Smith, London and New York, 1973, p. 107). An improvisatory sculptor by temperament, Three Deities was created at the height of Smith's original and visionary artistic trajectory, just two years after his work was included in the 29th Venice Biennale, and only a few years before his death in a car accident in 1965. The continuity between works is asserted by the artist's own understanding of the development of his body of work: "When I begin a sculpture I'm not always sure how it is going to end. In a way it has a relationship to the work before, it is in continuity with the previous work—it often holds a promise or a gesture toward the one to follow" (D. Smith, in G. McCoy, ibid., p. 148).
As a young artist in the 1920s, David Smith was influenced by Cubism, De Stijl, Russian Constructivism and the German Bauhaus, movements that were promoting geometric shapes as a new form of visual language. While studying at the Art Students league in New York, Smith began to incorporate found objects into his paintings, collages and sculptures. Later, while establishing himself at Terminal Iron Works in Brooklyn, Smith continued to develop his sculpture in constructing innovative and remarkably diverse forms from used machine parts, scrap metal, and other found objects. His sculpture always held a special place with the artist: "My sculpture is part of my world. It's part of my everyday living; it reflects my studio, my house, my trees, the nature of the world I live in," (D. Smith, quoted by M. Brenson in "The Fields," David Smith: A Centennial, exh. cat., Guggenheim Museum, New York, 2006, p. 65).
Three Deities oscillates between the figurative and abstract in a quintessentially David Smith manner. Critics have referred to Smith’s energetic use of materials and forms as three-dimensional Abstract Expressionism, evident here in the verve and vigor of this sculpture’s contours. Smith achieves a surprising weightlessness, due to the sculpture's open construction and dispersing of pictorial elements throughout the composition. The viewer is led to move from one element to the next within the newly established spatial reality.
Never falling into a single category, Smith’s work combined sculpture, drawing, painting, collage, and industrial welding. Three Deities further transcends distinctions between mediums and techniques. While the sculpture was cast from found elements, the bronze casting allowed Smith greater flexibility in manipulating the form and in achieving a unified surface. The carefully worked surface of Three Deities is a striking example of the artist’s ability to work metal in such a way as to evoke organic forms seen in nature. Smith’s manipulation transforms each of the three welded objects along the edge of the composition into flying figures of heavenly whims, weightless and mingling with the various interlocking parts of the sculpture. The refined composition creates a captivating dichotomy between solidity of form and openness of design.
At this time in his career, Smith was primarily working from his home and studio in Bolton Landing, New York after he was granted the Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship in April 1950. This recognition, and the financial benefits involved, temporarily freed Smith from relying on non-art related work for his income and enabled him to acquire a vast array of new materials. Smith's sculpture had changed decisively, both in scale and intention, beginning with the Agricola series instigated in 1951. Agricola is a Latin term meaning "farmer" or "a deity of agriculture" and Smith fittingly created the series out of abandoned farming machinery. The Agricola pieces show how Smith was attuned to the significance of his chosen material. The individual components of these sculptures were subsumed into a new formal construction, but their former utility still feeds into the significance of the sculpture's meaning. Smith would continue to explore the Agricola subject until 1959.
Three Deities corresponds to the Agricola series as a testament to the discarded faming equipment he used as materials. Similarly, Three Deities is a poignant example of Smith’s exploration into creating sculpture drawings. He made Three Deities by drawing with his materials in much the same way as a collagist draws with torn or cut-out paper, before casting the final sculpture in bronze. Indeed Smith's work emerged partially out of the aesthetic of cubist collage, and above all the collaborative iron constructions of Pablo Picasso and Julio González. Seeing reproductions of the elder artist's sculptures in a 1931 issue of Cahiers d'Art proved to be revelatory. Their incorporation of found materials and commercial welding techniques, allied with González's idea of drawing in space, set Smith on his course of creative discovery. Like González, Smith had learned to work metal while working in an automotive plant, and he found in the examples set before him a chance to make sculpture in a tradition he was rooted in. "Before knowing what art was or before going to art school, as a factory worker I was acquainted with steel and machines used in forging it. During my second year at art school I learned about Cubism, Picasso and Julio González through [magazines]. From them I learned that art was being made with steel--the materials and machines that had previously only meant labor and earning power" (D. Smith quoted in K. Wilkin, David Smith, New York, 1984, p. 12).
Smith's career is one of constant reinvention of themes and strategies as well as steel and iron parts. While he continued to push the boundaries of sculpture's formal restrictions, he was also reflecting back on subjects that he had confidently explored in his earlier work. This work is as much about the ethos of Smith as an artist and the linguistic and visual dialogue he was having with the objects and materials that make up the work, as it is about any representational image that Smith was trying to achieve. Smith has managed to breathe life into inanimate readymade objects, creating a work that is simultaneously delicate and strong, a masterpiece of tension and balance. An image of formal beauty and powerful expressiveness, Three Deities exemplifies Smith's mastery over modern industrial materials.
As a young artist in the 1920s, David Smith was influenced by Cubism, De Stijl, Russian Constructivism and the German Bauhaus, movements that were promoting geometric shapes as a new form of visual language. While studying at the Art Students league in New York, Smith began to incorporate found objects into his paintings, collages and sculptures. Later, while establishing himself at Terminal Iron Works in Brooklyn, Smith continued to develop his sculpture in constructing innovative and remarkably diverse forms from used machine parts, scrap metal, and other found objects. His sculpture always held a special place with the artist: "My sculpture is part of my world. It's part of my everyday living; it reflects my studio, my house, my trees, the nature of the world I live in," (D. Smith, quoted by M. Brenson in "The Fields," David Smith: A Centennial, exh. cat., Guggenheim Museum, New York, 2006, p. 65).
Three Deities oscillates between the figurative and abstract in a quintessentially David Smith manner. Critics have referred to Smith’s energetic use of materials and forms as three-dimensional Abstract Expressionism, evident here in the verve and vigor of this sculpture’s contours. Smith achieves a surprising weightlessness, due to the sculpture's open construction and dispersing of pictorial elements throughout the composition. The viewer is led to move from one element to the next within the newly established spatial reality.
Never falling into a single category, Smith’s work combined sculpture, drawing, painting, collage, and industrial welding. Three Deities further transcends distinctions between mediums and techniques. While the sculpture was cast from found elements, the bronze casting allowed Smith greater flexibility in manipulating the form and in achieving a unified surface. The carefully worked surface of Three Deities is a striking example of the artist’s ability to work metal in such a way as to evoke organic forms seen in nature. Smith’s manipulation transforms each of the three welded objects along the edge of the composition into flying figures of heavenly whims, weightless and mingling with the various interlocking parts of the sculpture. The refined composition creates a captivating dichotomy between solidity of form and openness of design.
At this time in his career, Smith was primarily working from his home and studio in Bolton Landing, New York after he was granted the Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship in April 1950. This recognition, and the financial benefits involved, temporarily freed Smith from relying on non-art related work for his income and enabled him to acquire a vast array of new materials. Smith's sculpture had changed decisively, both in scale and intention, beginning with the Agricola series instigated in 1951. Agricola is a Latin term meaning "farmer" or "a deity of agriculture" and Smith fittingly created the series out of abandoned farming machinery. The Agricola pieces show how Smith was attuned to the significance of his chosen material. The individual components of these sculptures were subsumed into a new formal construction, but their former utility still feeds into the significance of the sculpture's meaning. Smith would continue to explore the Agricola subject until 1959.
Three Deities corresponds to the Agricola series as a testament to the discarded faming equipment he used as materials. Similarly, Three Deities is a poignant example of Smith’s exploration into creating sculpture drawings. He made Three Deities by drawing with his materials in much the same way as a collagist draws with torn or cut-out paper, before casting the final sculpture in bronze. Indeed Smith's work emerged partially out of the aesthetic of cubist collage, and above all the collaborative iron constructions of Pablo Picasso and Julio González. Seeing reproductions of the elder artist's sculptures in a 1931 issue of Cahiers d'Art proved to be revelatory. Their incorporation of found materials and commercial welding techniques, allied with González's idea of drawing in space, set Smith on his course of creative discovery. Like González, Smith had learned to work metal while working in an automotive plant, and he found in the examples set before him a chance to make sculpture in a tradition he was rooted in. "Before knowing what art was or before going to art school, as a factory worker I was acquainted with steel and machines used in forging it. During my second year at art school I learned about Cubism, Picasso and Julio González through [magazines]. From them I learned that art was being made with steel--the materials and machines that had previously only meant labor and earning power" (D. Smith quoted in K. Wilkin, David Smith, New York, 1984, p. 12).
Smith's career is one of constant reinvention of themes and strategies as well as steel and iron parts. While he continued to push the boundaries of sculpture's formal restrictions, he was also reflecting back on subjects that he had confidently explored in his earlier work. This work is as much about the ethos of Smith as an artist and the linguistic and visual dialogue he was having with the objects and materials that make up the work, as it is about any representational image that Smith was trying to achieve. Smith has managed to breathe life into inanimate readymade objects, creating a work that is simultaneously delicate and strong, a masterpiece of tension and balance. An image of formal beauty and powerful expressiveness, Three Deities exemplifies Smith's mastery over modern industrial materials.