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Tanktotem II
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Tanktotem II

David Smith  (American, Decatur, Indiana 1906–1965 Bennington, Vermont)

Date:
1952–53
Medium:
Steel and bronze
Dimensions:
H.80-1/2, W.49-1/2, D.18-1/2 inches (204.5 x 125.7 x 47 cm)
Classification:
Sculpture
Credit Line:
Fletcher Fund, 1953
Accession Number:
53.93
Rights and Reproduction:
© Estate of David Smith/ VAGA, New York, NY

This artwork is currently on display in Gallery 921

  • Description

    Around 1933, having seen photographs of metal assemblages by Pablo Picasso and Julio González, David Smith began to make small sculptures from found materials. Working first in a room at Terminal Iron Works, a Brooklyn welding shop, in 1940 Smith moved to Bolton Landing in the Adirondacks where he named his studio after the metalworks where he had his original workspace. Using found materials or machine parts-in this case commercial boiler tops ordered from a catalogue-and, after 1950, working in series, Smith created forms that he referred to as personages for their physical presence and human scale. Smith's anthropomorphic Tanktotems combine his interest in the Surrealist totem-the object at once desired and taboo-and the Constructivist impulse to achieve a new spatial reality through industrial materials and techniques such as welding.

  • Signatures, Inscriptions, and Markings

    Signature: Signed and dated (on plaque welded to base): David Smith/1952-53/TANKTOTEM II

  • Exhibition History

    Roslyn Harbor, NY: Nassau County Museum of Art, Feb. 28-May 23, 1993. ¦Intimates and Confidants in Art: Husbands, Wives, Lovers and Friends¦. pg. 62, illus.

    Australia: Australian National Gallery, Mar. 1-Apr. 27, 1986; Queensland Art Gallery, May 7-July 1, 1986. ¦20th Century Masters from The Metropolitan Museum of Art¦. exh. cat., p. 61 (illus. in color).

    ¦Relationships: Paintings, Sculpture, and Drawings from the Twentieth Century Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art¦. Art Gallery, Herbert H. Lehman College, City University of New York, Bronx, November 16, 1984-January 6, 1985 (catalogue by Greta Berman), no. 33; illustrated in black and white

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