Tony Smith (sculptor)
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Tony Smith (September 23, 1912 – December 26, 1980) was an American sculptor, visual artist, and a noted theorist on art.
Tony Smith was born in South Orange, New Jersey. He first trained as an architect and in 1939 began working for Frank Lloyd Wright and was introduced to Wright's module concrete blocks. He also did some painting as a part-time student at the Art Students League but did not begin sculpting until 1956 when he was age 44. His first exhibitions were in 1964.
Allied with the minimalist school, Tony Smith worked with simple geometrical modules combined on a three-dimensional grid, creating drama through simplicity and scale. Smith became close friends with Barnett Newman, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, and Clyfford Still, and his sculpture shows their abstract influence.
Smith was also a teacher in various institutions including New York University, Cooper Union, Pratt Institute, Bennington College and Hunter College and was a leading sculptor in the 1960s and 1970s
A major retrospective, "Tony Smith: Architect, Painter, Sculptor," was held at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1998.
He was the father of artists Kiki Smith and Seton Smith.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- Busch, Julia M., A Decade of Sculpture: the New Media in the 1960's (The Art Alliance Press: Philadelphia; Associated University Presses: London, 1974) ISBN 0-87982-007-1
[edit] External links
- Tony Smith Biography @ artnet.com
- Tony Smith Biography @ nga.gov
