The Fields of David Smith

David Smith strove to create works of art that could be viewed "without reverence or awe" because they were, in his words, "natural . . . statements of peaceful pursuit." Intrinsic to this hope was his conviction that sculpture belongs in the elements, with sky and earth as its visible reference points. The Fields of David Smith celebrates a three-year exhibition in the expansive landscape of the Storm King Art Center in Mountainville, New York. The aim of the curators has been to recapture the experience of viewing Smith's work during his lifetime, when it was deployed with care and exuberance in ever-changing arrangements in his fields at Bolton Landing in the Adirondacks. The book first re-creates the scene at Bolton Landing. A moving essay by Smith's daughter Candida captures in the most personal and direct terms the man himself, his struggles and delights, and the intensity of his working life. This is followed by a memoir by Irving Sandler and reminiscences by friends of the artist. The text is accompanied by photographs by fellow artists and by Smith himself. The balance of the book is a sumptuous album of the evolving Storm King exhibition, featuring major works by Smith sent from collections all over the country. Jerry L. Thompson, one of the foremost photographers of sculpture, has captured Smith's work in summer and snow, at sunrise and dusk, glistening in the rain and presiding over the mists. The interplay between the works and their surroundings, and the effects of light on their surfaces, provides a new lens through which to view the sculpture of David Smith. With contributions by Mark di Suvero, Helen Frankenthaler, Anthony Caro, Kenneth Noland, and others. Historical photography by David Smith, Dan Budnik, Alexander Liberman, and others.

After David Smith's untimely death in 1965, row upon row of extraordinary abstract sculptures were discovered in the grassy fields that surround the artist's home and studio at Bolton Landing in the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York. Fittingly, many of these works were subsequently acquired by Storm King Art Center, the world's quintessential sculpture park, which is set on 500 acres of rolling lawns, fields, and woodlands and surrounded by the undulating profiles of the Hudson Highlands. Smith's sculpture fields there provide the inspiration for this book, published to coincide with a three-year exhibition (1997 to 1999) of the works at Storm King. The human form in landscape, or "the artist in the world," is a consistent visual theme for this grouping of Smith's monumental planar and volumetric assemblages of geometric shapes and seamlessly transformed found objects. In Portrait of a Painter (1954), for instance, Smith created a figural silhouette in which flat bronze rectangles form a spinal column and pelvis, crescent-shaped arches delineate the curves of a body, and an actual cast palette serves as a head.

This large, colorful book is chock-a-block with images and information, collaged in the lyrical spirit of David Smith's diverse works. In her introductory essay, daughter Candida N. Smith recalls a magical childhood in the creative oasis of what the artist called his "sculpture farm," and writes eloquently of his art as an extension of his identity. A memoir by prominent art critic and historian Irving Sandler describes Smith's circle (which included Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, and Franz Kline), his deeply modernist roots, and his interest in cubism, constructivism, and surrealism. Throughout the book are quotes by many of Smith's artist friends, including Helen Frankenthaler ("A ribald and beautiful human being, with a roar of laughter"); Kenneth Noland ("When he did something, he did it absolutely. He meant for it to stand up to anything: nature, aesthetics, anything"); Anthony Caro ("He made his life around sculpture and I think he taught me that"); and Mark di Suvero, ("[He] had the animal energy of an industrial worker, the capacity, the craftsmanship and the will of an original artist, and he drank his booze ... in a way that made me shudder.... He was a master"). --A.C. Smith