David Smith: A Centennial

Deemed the "foremost sculptor of his generation" by art critic Clement Greenberg, David Smith, who lived from 1906 to 1965, is about to be celebrated in his first retrospective since 1969—to be held at the Guggenheim Museum, New York, from February through May of 2006. David Smith: A Centennial features new photographs of nearly every selected sculpture—110 pieces dating from 1932 to 1965, including important examples from each period, many rarely seen in public. Essays from writers including David Anfam, Michael Brenson, Rosalind Krauss and Paul Hayes Tucker tackle key areas, such as Smith's relationship to the painters of the New York School, the dual development of his family life and series sculpture through the 1950s and 60s, and his use of the landscape outside his studio in formulating his late works. Perhaps most importantly, David Smith: A Centennial also features the most comprehensive research on Smith yet published, including a newly compiled and extended bibliography; a comprehensive exhibition history; a chronology; and an illustrated checklist tracking provenance, exhibition history, and bibliographic references for each featured sculpture, finally bringing scholarship on Smith to the level of that on other important American artists of his generation, such as Barnett Newman, Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko. David Smith: A Centennial considers Smith's oeuvre as a totality, and offers readers the chance to understand the complexity of his aesthetic concerns as well as his impact on the course of American sculpture, and American art at large.