Poster for David Smith Exhibition of Drawings and Sculpture, Willaird Gallery, N

Description

A versatile artist, David Smith created sculpture, drawings, paintings, photos, and prints. He produced numerous works each year, his work in one medium often echoing his work in another. Smith explored his sculptural forms quite thoroughly beforehand through drawing. He once noted that he did not recognize the limits and boundaries between sculpture and painting.
Some of Smith’s drawings of the 1950s were explorations of emerging ideas for sculptures. Compare, for example, this woodcut with Smith’s Tahstvaat (1946), also on view in the gallery. As in that sculpture, we see a form evocative of the female figure. A dynamic interplay between form, line, and color animates the composition.
Jamina Ramírez, Intern for Modern and Contemporary Art, on the occasion of the exhibition The New York School: Abstract Expressionism and Beyond, July 20, 2002 – January 19, 2003