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David Smith    (American, 1906-1965)



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Biography
1906 Born in Decatur, Indiana; father is telephone technician-executive and inventor; mother is school teacher
1921 Smith family moves to Paulding, Ohio
1924 - 1925 Attends Ohio University in Athens for one year to study art; transfers to Notre Dame University, Southbend, Indiana; works summer of 1925 at Studebaker Company’s factory in South Bend
1926 - 1927 Assigned by Studebaker Company to New York City; meets Dorothy Dehner, an art student who lives in his apartment building; Marries Dehner in 1927; at the suggestion of Dehner, he attends the Art Students League and studies painting with John Sloan
1928 - 1929 Studies with Czech artist Jan Matulka; Matulka introduces Smith to works of Kandinsky, Mondrian, the Russian Constructivists, and the Cubists, especially Pablo Picasso
1929 Smiths spend time at Lake George in Bolton Landing, New York, at the house of Thomas and Weber Furlong, friends from the Art Students League; Dorothy Dehner’s inheritance allows Smiths to purchase an eighty-six acre farm in Bolton Landing; Smiths meet artist John Graham via the Furlongs and Graham introduces Smith to sculptural works of Picasso and Julio Gonzalez, who were working in iron
1931 - 1932 Smiths visit the Virgin Islands and stay through June 1932; makes abstract drawings and paintings; produces first sculptures out of coral; Smiths return to New York and David begins to use steel for his sculptures
1933 Welds sculpture in a foundry in Brooklyn, New York, called Terminal Iron Works, which becomes his adopted make-shift “studio” for several years
1934 Through John Graham Smith meets Frank Crowninshield, the editor of Vanity Fair, and Smith is commissioned to make bases for Crowninshield’s African sculpture collection; with John Graham’s introduction, Smith now part of New York City circle of artists Milton Avery, Arshile Gorky, Stuart Davis, Adolph Gottlieb and Jean Xceron
1935 Smiths travels to Europe for several months, visiting London, Paris, Greece, Soviet Union
1938 Prominent New York dealer Marian Willard offers Smith first solo exhibition at her East River Gallery; Willard represents Smith for next eighteen years
1940 Electricity becomes available in Bolton Landing, prompting Smiths to leave New York City and live full-time at their Bolton Landing farm; the farm becomes known as 'Terminal Iron Works'
1942 - 1944 Works at the American Locomotive Company in Schenectady, New York welding tanks; artistic productivity declines due to shortage of materials because of war, however continues to make drawings
1944 Starts again to make more sculptures at Bolton Landing; exhibits frequently
1950 Smith and Dorothy Dehner separate (divorce finalized in 1952) and he begins to work furiously on his sculptures
1950 - 1951 Awarded Guggenheim Foundation fellowship two years in a row; continues to produce drawings, which become more calligraphic and flowing due to his interest in Asian art
1953 Marries Jean Freas; couple has two daughters, Candida and Rebecca
1958 Begins 'spray' paintings (places scraps of metal and other materials on a sheet of paper and sprays the objects with paint or enamel, resulting in an overall design of an opaque background and 'empty' space where objects once were)
1961 Marriage to Jean Freas ends
1962 Invited to partake in prestigious Spoleto Festival of Two Worlds and produces an amazing twenty-seven sculptures in thirty days
1965 Appointed by President Lyndon Johnson to the National Council on the Arts; dies May 23rd in a tragic truck accident near Bennington, Vermont

Exhibitions
2009 Marble, Gagosian Gallery, New York, USA
2009 Institut Valenciá d'Art Modern (IVAM), Valencia, Spain
2009 The Third Mind: American Artists Contemplate Asia, 1960-1989, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, USA
2009 Innovations in the Third Dimension: Sculpture of Our Time, Bruce Museum, Greenwich, Connecticut, USA
2009 The Thaw Collection of Master Drawings: Acquisitions Since 2002, The Morgan Library and Museum, New York, USA
2009 Lora Reynolds Gallery, Austin, USA
2009 Russell Bowman Art Advisory, Chicago, USA
2009 Washburn Gallery, New York, USA
2008 Sprays, Gagosian Gallery, New York, USA
2008 Working Surface -- Drawings, Paintings, Sculptures 1932-1962, Galerie Gmurzynska, Zurich, Switzerland
2008 1945-1949: Repartir à zero, comme si la peinture n'avait jamais existé, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon, France
2008 Untitled (Vicarious): Photographing the Constructed Object, Gagosian Gallery, New York
2008 In Pursuit of the Masters: Stories from the Raymond and Patsy Nasher Collection, Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas, USA
2008 For What You Are About to Receive, Gagosian Gallery, Moscow, Russia
2008 Abstract Expressionism -- A World Elsewhere, Haunch of Venison, New York
2008 Modernist Sculpture: The Teresa and Alvin S. Lane Collection, Chazen Museum of Art, Madison, USA
2008 Sand: Memory, Meaning and Metaphor, The Parrish Art Museum, Southampton, NY, USA
2008 Collecting for Chicago: Prints, Drawings, and Patronage; Five Families Build Collections of Works on Paper for the Art Institute of Chicago, Art Institute of Chicago, USA
2008 The 1930s: The Making of 'The New Man',National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Canada
2008 Action/Abstraction: Pollock, De Kooning, and American Art, 1940-1976, The Jewish Museum, New York, USA
2007 Landscape: Form and Thought, Waqas Wajahat in association with Ingrao Gallery, New York, USA
2007 Nineteen Going on Twenty: Recent Acquisitions from the Collection of The Contemporary Museum, The Contemporary Museum, Honolulu, USA
2007 Art for Yale: Collecting for a New Century. Celebrating the 175th Anniversary of the Yale University Art Gallery and the Centennial of Paul Mellon's Birth, Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut, USA
2007 Abstract Expressionism and Other Modern Works: The Muriel Kallis Steinberg Newman Collection in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA
2007 Don’t Look,Contemporary Drawings from an Alumna’s Collection (Martina Yamin, Class of 1958), Davis Museum and Cultural Center, Wellesley College, Wellesley, Massachusetts, USA
2007 1937: Perfektion und Zerstörung [1937: Perfection and Destruction], Kunsthalle Bielefeld, Bielefeld, Germany
2007 Abstract Expressionist Drawings, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
2007 The Luther W. Brady Collection at the Picker Art Gallery, Colgate University, Picker Art Gallery, Colgate University, Hamilton, New York, USA
2007 Art Basel Miami, Miami, USA
2006 A Centennial. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, USA
2006 Personage, Gagosian Gallery, New York, USA
2006 Seeing David Smith: Photographs by Dan Budnik, Knoedler & Company, New York, USA
2006 Sprays, American Contemporary Art Gallery, Munich, Germany
2006 NEW YORK, NEW YORK - Fifty Years of American Art“, Grimaldi Forum Monaco, with Otto Hübner as curator for the Abstract Expressionism
2006 Archival to Contemporary: Six Decades of the Sculptors Guild, Hillwood Art Museum, Long Island University, Brookville, New York, USA
2006 Toward a New American Cubism, Berry-Hill Galleries, Inc., New York, USA
2006 New York New York: Fifty Years of Art, Architecture, Film, Music, and Video, The Grimaldi Forum, Monte Carlo, Monaco
2006 Coming of Age: American Art, 1950s to 1950s, Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, Massachusetts, USA
2006 The Picasso Influence in Pollock, Rothko and Smith, Washburn Gallery, New York, USA
2006 Surrealism: Then and Now, Paul Kasmin Gallery & Edelman Arts, Inc., New York, USA
2005 - 2006 Ecole de New York, MAMAC Nice, France
2005 Drawing + Sculpting, Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas, USA
2005 Paintings and Drawings 1955-1958, Margo Leavin Gallery, Los Angeles, USA
2005 David Smith/Alexander Calder: Large Scale Works, Gagosian Gallery, New York, USA
2005 Paint on Metal: Modern and Contemporary Explorations and Discoveries, Tucson Museum of Art, USA
2005 Surrealism USA, National Academy of Design, New York, USA
2005 Black, Thomas McCormick Gallery, Chicago, USA
2005 Works on Paper, Danese Gallery, New York, USA
2005 Salute to the 130th Anniversary of the Art Students League of New York, Joan T. Washburn Gallery, New York, USA
2005 Continuum: Celebrating the 130th Anniversary of the Arts Students League of New York, ACA Galleries, New York, USA
2005 École de New York: Expressionisme abstrait américaine, oeuvres sur papier [New York School: American Abstract Expressionism, Works on Paper], Musée d'art moderne et d'art contemporain, Nice, France
2004 - 2005 Action Painting-Arte Americana 1940-1970, Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Modena, Modena, Peggy Guggenheim Collection Venedig in cooperation with american contemporary art GALLERY
2004 Related Clues: Drawings, Paintings and Sculpture 1931-1964, Gagosian Gallery, New York, USA
2004 Dibujante. Entre Eros y Tánatos [David Smith: Draftsman. Between Eros and Thanatos], IVAM (Instituto Valenciano de Arte Moderno), Centro Julio González, Spain
2004 Gagosian Gallery, London, UK
2004 Gagosian Gallery, London, UK
2004 Sculpture Monumentale Américaine [Monumental American Sculpture], Donjon de Vez, France
2004 Bare Clay: Ceramic Nudes in 20th-Century Art, Garth Clark Gallery, New York
2004 Forging New Visions: Teaching the Visual Arts at Sarah Lawrence College, Sarah Lawrence College, Monika A. and Charles A. Heimbold Jr. Visual Arts Center, Bronxville, New York, USA
2004 Reuniting an Era: Abstract Expressionists of the 1950s, Rockford Art Museum, Rockford, IL, USA
2004 Life Understood, Hill Gallery, Birmingham, MI, USA
2003 20th Century Sculpture, Acquavella Gallery, New York, USA
2003 El Expresionismo Abstracto Americano en las Colecciones Españolas [American Abstract Expressionist Works in Spanish Collections], Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Esteban Vicente, Segovia, Spain
2003 Black/White, Danese Gallery, New York
2003 Dessins de David Smith: un choix d'Alain Kirili [Drawings by David Smith; Selected by Alain Kirili], École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts, Chapelle des Petits-Augins, Paris, France
2003 A Selection from the Estate: David Smith -- Works on Paper 1952-1960, American Contemporary Art Gallery, Munich, Germany
2002 Lois Orswell, David Smith, and Modern Art, Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA
2001 Ink Drawings from 1957, Margo Leavin Gallery, Los Angeles, USA
2001 Jackson Pollock and David Smith: Paintings and Sculptures from the 1930s and the 1940s, Washburn Gallery, New York, USA
2000 Two into Three Dimensions, Douglas F. Cooley Memorial Art Gallery, Reed College, Portland, OR, USA
2000 David Smith on the Roof, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA
2000 The Last Nudes, Gagosian Gallery, New York, USA
2000 Voici, cent ans d'art contemporain, Societe des expositions du palais des beaux-arts de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium
2000 Crossroads of American sculpture: David Smith, George Rickey, John Chamberlain, Robert Indiana, William T. Wiley, Bruce Nauman, Indianapolis Museum of Art, USA
1999 Paintings, Sculptures and Medals, Tel Aviv Museum of Art,
1999 The Fields of David Smith, Storm King Art Center, Mountainville, NY, USA
1998 The Fields of David Smith, Storm King Art Center, Mountainville, NY, USA
1998 Photographs 1931-1965, Matthew Marks Gallery, New York, USA
1998 Painted Steel: The Late Works of David Smith, Gagosian, New York, USA
1998 La sculpture moderne au Jardin des Tuileries, Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication, Paris, France
1998 Stop Action, Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami, USA (cat.)
1997 The Fields of David Smith, Storm King Art Center, Mountainville, NY, USA
1997 Replacing the Shower of Sparks with the Spray of Paint, Sprays and Drawings, Hill Gallery, Birmingham, MI, USA
1996 IVAM (Instituto Valenciano de Arte Moderno), Centro Julio González, Spain
1996 Medals for Dishonor, Columbus Museum of Art, OH, USA
1995 The Inspiration of Music, Washburn Gallery, New York, USA
1995 To and From the Figure, Knoedler Gallery, New York, USA
1995 David Smith in Italy, Prada MilanoArte, Milan, Italy
1995 This Work Is My Identity, Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA
1994 Sezon Museum of Art, Tokyo, Japan
1994 Margo Leavin Gallery, Los Angeles, USA
1994 Medals for Dishonor, 1937-1940, Matthew Marks Gallery, New York, USA
1993 Picasso and the Age of Iron, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, USA
1992 Knoedler & Company, New York, USA
1991 Medals For Dishonor, 1937-1940, Imperial War Museum, London, UK
1991 Art of the Forties, Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA
1990 Margo Leavin Gallery, Los Angeles, USA
1990 Nudes: Drawings and Paintings from 1927-1964, Knoedler & Company, New York, USA
1990 The Fourth Australian Sculpture Triennial, Heide Park and Art Gallery, Bulleen, Victoria, Australia
1990 Washburn Gallery, New York, USA
1989 Human Concern/Personal Torment. The Grotesque in American Art Revisited, Phyllis Kind Gallery, New York
1988 From the Southern Cross: A View of World Art c.1940-88, The Australian Biennale, Art Gallery of New South, Sydney, Australia
1988 Akira Ikeda Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
1988 Drawings of the Fifties, Anthony d'Offay Gallery, London, UK
1987 The Prints, Pace Prints, New York, USA (cat.)
1987 Paintings from the 1930's, Washburn Gallery, New York, USA (cat.)
1986 Skulpturen, Zeichnungen [Sculpture and Drawings], Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf, Germany
1986 David Smith, Die reifen Jahre, 1951-1965: Skulpturen und Zeichnungen [David Smith, the Mature Years, 1951-1965: Sculpture and Drawings], Galerie Hans Strelow, Düsseldorf
1986 Drawings and Sculpture, M. Knoedler & Co., Inc., New York, USA
1964 Sculpture and Drawings,Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA (cat.)
1964 The Hyde Collection, Glens Falls, NY, USA
1964 Marlborough-Gerson Gallery Inc., New York, USA
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