David Smith: Object and Image, Small Paintings 1954-1958

Los Angeles, CA: Margo Leavin Gallery, 2007. Softcover. VG.. Small square quarto. Softcover. Dark grey wraps with silver stamped titles. This volume is a catalog published to accompany an exhibition of the works of American artist David Smith (1906-1965). Smith was best known as an Abstract Expressionist sculptor best known for creating large steel abstract geometric sculptures. Much of Smith's work explores the fusion of drawing, painting, and sculpture. This exhibition includes a rare series of intimate yet powerful paintings that have an experimental and free disposition. Although each work is small in scale, they individually hold an abundance of bold charisma. Smith made the paintings in this exhibition over a four-year period. Each work was made on a sturdy, precut piece of masonite board. Viewing them as a group, one is struck by their range of style and tone, the charged tension in the varied relationships between surface and illusionary space, and their function as both object and image. Simultaneously intimate and powerfully direct, these paintings are emblematic of Smith's belief that all art is experienced through our visual response to image.