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Tony Smith (sculptor)
Encyclopedia
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
sculptor, visual artist, architectural designer, and a noted theorist on art. He is often cited as a pioneering figure in American Minimalist sculpture.
Education
Anthony Peter Smith, "Tony," was born in South Orange, New JerseySouth Orange, New Jersey
-Demographics:As of the census of 2000, there were 16,964 people, 5,522 households, and 3,766 families residing in the township. The population density was 5,945.3 people per square mile . There were 5,671 housing units at an average density of 1,987.5 per square mile...
to a waterworks manufacturing family started by his grandfather and namesake, A. P. Smith. Tony contracted tuberculosis
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
as a youth and his family constructed an isolation ward in the backyard in an effort to protect his fragile immune system. He was attended to by a nurse to maintain his health and tutors to keep up with his schoolwork. The medicine he was given came in little boxes which he used to form cardboard constructions and when he could, he visited the waterworks factory to marvel at the machines and fabrication processes. After the TB cleared up, Tony attended a Jesuit high school and spent two years at Georgetown University. He was disillusioned and felt no direction at Georgetown so he returned to New Jersey and opened a bookstore, worked at the family factory and attended evening courses at the Art Students League of New York
Art Students League of New York
The Art Students League of New York is an art school located on West 57th Street in New York City. The League has historically been known for its broad appeal to both amateurs and professional artists, and has maintained for over 130 years a tradition of offering reasonably priced classes on a...
. In 1937, he moved to Chicago to attend the New Bauhaus but again found himself disillusioned. The following year, Smith began working for Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright was an American architect, interior designer, writer and educator, who designed more than 1,000 structures and completed 500 works. Wright believed in designing structures which were in harmony with humanity and its environment, a philosophy he called organic architecture...
as an office clerk, a position that allowed the young designer to discover his own unique artistic sensibilities.
Career
While with Wright, Smith worked with other apprentice's on the Gunning House (aka Glenbrow) before deciding to strike out on his own. Despite his lack of formal architectural training or a license, he was commissioned to design and build several homes including studios for Theodoro Stamos, Betty ParsonsBetty Parsons
Betty Parsons, born Betty Bierne Pierson, was an American artist and art dealer known for her early promotion of Abstract Expressionism. She was known as "the den mother of Abstract Expressionism"...
and a sprawling compound for Fred Olsen. Despite these successes, the architect/client relationship frustrated Smith enough that he gravitated toward his artwork. Smith continued to paint in abstract geometric composition and found himself teaching a basic design course at Hunter College
Hunter College
Hunter College, established in 1870, is a public university and one of the constituent colleges of the City University of New York, located on Manhattan's Upper East Side. Hunter grants undergraduate, graduate, and post-graduate degrees in more than one hundred fields of study, and is recognized...
. One class assignment consisted of forming maquettes out of cigarette box cardboard, he then asked his students to increase the scale of their designs by 5 times with regular cardboard which startled students and teacher alike as powerful objects began to take shape. In 1956, while sitting in a colleagues office, he was drawn to the form of a simple file cabinet. He phoned a local fabricator and commissioned a box 2' x 3' x 2' in size. Although the welders assumed he was crazed, they treated the project with the utmost craftmanship and the result was a stunning form to Smith. He had discovered a sculpting process that he continued to hone. His first exhibitions were in 1964.
Allied with the minimalist school
Minimalism
Minimalism describes movements in various forms of art and design, especially visual art and music, where the work is set out to expose the essence, essentials or identity of a subject through eliminating all non-essential forms, features or concepts...
, Tony 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
Barnett Newman
Barnett Newman was an American artist. He is seen as one of the major figures in abstract expressionism and one of the foremost of the color field painters.-Early life:...
, Jackson Pollock
Jackson Pollock
Paul Jackson Pollock , known as Jackson Pollock, was an influential American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. During his lifetime, Pollock enjoyed considerable fame and notoriety. He was regarded as a mostly reclusive artist. He had a volatile personality, and...
, Mark Rothko
Mark Rothko
Mark Rothko, born Marcus Rothkowitz , was a Russian-born American painter. He is classified as an abstract expressionist, although he himself rejected this label, and even resisted classification as an "abstract painter".- Childhood :Mark Rothko was born in Dvinsk, Vitebsk Province, Russian...
, and Clyfford Still
Clyfford Still
Clyfford Still was an American painter, and one of the leading figures of Abstract Expressionism.-Biography:...
, and his sculpture shows their abstract influence.
Smith was also a teacher in various institutions including New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
, Cooper Union
Cooper Union
The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, commonly referred to simply as Cooper Union, is a privately funded college in the East Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, United States, located at Cooper Square and Astor Place...
, Pratt Institute
Pratt Institute
Pratt Institute is a private art college in New York City located in Brooklyn, New York, with satellite campuses in Manhattan and Utica. Pratt is one of the leading undergraduate art schools in the United States and offers programs in Architecture, Graphic Design, History of Art and Design,...
, Bennington College
Bennington College
Bennington College is a liberal arts college located in Bennington, Vermont, USA. The college was founded in 1932 as a women's college and became co-educational in 1969.-History:-Early years:...
and Hunter College
Hunter College
Hunter College, established in 1870, is a public university and one of the constituent colleges of the City University of New York, located on Manhattan's Upper East Side. Hunter grants undergraduate, graduate, and post-graduate degrees in more than one hundred fields of study, and is recognized...
and was a leading sculptor in the 1960s and 1970s, typically associated with the Minimal art movement. He was asked to anchor the seminal 1966 show at the Jewish Museum in New York entitled Primary Structures
Primary Structures (1966 exhibition)
Primary Structures: Younger American and British Sculptors was a minimalist art exhibit shown from April 27 - June 12, 1966 at the Jewish Museum in New York...
.
Smith was asked to teach a sculpture course at the University of Hawaii in 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.
A major retrospective, "Tony Smith: Architect, Painter, Sculptor," was held at the Museum of Modern Art
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
in 1998.
Tony met his wife, opera singer, Jane Lawrence
Jane Lawrence
Jane Lawrence Smith , born Jane Brotherton, was an American actress and opera singer who was part of the New York art scene from the 1950s on.-Life and work:...
, in New York in 1943. They were married in Santa Monica with Tennessee Williams
Tennessee Williams
Thomas Lanier "Tennessee" Williams III was an American writer who worked principally as a playwright in the American theater. He also wrote short stories, novels, poetry, essays, screenplays and a volume of memoirs...
as his best man.
He was the father of artists Chiara "Kiki" Smith
Kiki Smith
Kiki Smith is an American artist classified as a feminist artist, a movement with beginnings in the twentieth century...
, 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 a blood condition which produces a large number of red blood cells called polycythemia. His health was always questionable and deteriorated until he succumbed to a heart attack at age 68.
The Estate of Tony Smith is represented by the Matthew Marks Gallery
Matthew Marks Gallery
Matthew Marks is an art gallery located in the New York City neighborhood of Chelsea. Founded in the early 1990s by Matthew Marks, it specializes in modern and contemporary art in a variety of media: including painting, sculpture, photography, installation art, film, and drawings and prints...
in New York.