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Lot Essay
David Smith’s Tanktotem X belongs to one of the artist’s most important series, in which—over the course of a decade—he explored the boundaries between the human figure and abstract forms. Smith used works such as this to refine his unique concept of what he termed “drawing in space,” combining found materials with careful composition, to produce sculptures that came to exemplify his unique form of “action painting” in three-dimensional form. Tanktotem X is rare within Smith’s body of work in that it also incorporates the use of color as an important part of his composition. Consequently it has been exhibited in several of the artist’s most important exhibitions, including his 1969 Guggenheim retrospective, and the institution’s 2006 show that marked the artist’s centennial (and subsequently regarded as one of the most important exhibitions of his work in a generation). Other examples from the series are included in major international institutional collections including The Art Institute of Chicago, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and The Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid. Widely regarded as the foremost sculptor of Abstract Expressionism, David Smith possessed a unique ability to transform and coerce rough matter into bouts of lyrical energy, as can be seen in the present work.
Standing over five feet tall, Tanktotem X is a powerful assemblage of both physical and abstract forms. Using found materials, together with some specifically fashioned for this work, Smith carves out muscular forms in space. Supported by a vertical steel support, seemingly disparate elements are laid out on a horizontal plane. At one end, a large concave panel marks the beginning of a progression of forms, its curved silhouette reducing to a pair of narrowing protrusions that jut out into the space beyond that is contained by the sculpture itself. Abutting this is a hemispherical shell—slightly elongated on the vertical axis—its compact form acting in an introspective manner as opposed to its extrovertly fashioned neighbor. At the other end of the composition, another disk acts as a counter balance, it solid shape adding weight and substance to the overall sculpture. In between, a progression of forms and voids acts a compositional bridge between the two elements.
One of the most remarkable qualities of this work, however, is Smith’s use of color, something which only rarely made an appearances in his sculpture. In a lecture the artist gave at Bennington College in May 1965, he described the effects of the surrounding landscape had on the chromatic palette of Tanktotem X: “I depended upon the flowers and the tomatoes to carry that one. But it’s a painted sculpture. I actually think that the garden had something to do with—you know, unconsciously—I wasn’t trying to use any colors that were in the garden, but I actually think that the colors I saw influenced the painting of the sculpture” (quoted in C. Lloyd, ed., David Smith Sculpture: A Catalogue Raisonné, 1932-1965, New Haven and London, 2021, p. 216).
Through the 1950s, Smith worked on a number of overlapping series. The Tanktotems, commenced in 1952, feature the incorporation of boiler tank tops as their binding motif. The works in this pivotal series broke new ground by abandoning the form of the pedestal. Each Tanktotem sculpture instead plants itself resolutely on the ground. In a nod to the resultant anthropomorphism, Smith fondly referred to his modern totems as “personages” and arranged them like watchmen on the grounds of his domicile in Bolton Landing, New York. The poet Frank O’Hara wrote that Smith’s “personages” reminded him of “people who are awaiting admittance to a formal reception and, while they wait, are thinking about their roles when they join the rest of the guests already in the meadow” (quoted in M. Perloff, Frank O’Hara: Poet Among Painters, Chicago, 1997, p. 24).
Smith drew inspiration from the iron sculptures of Pablo Picasso and Julio González, the former of which he came across in Cahiers d’art in 1929 and the latter of which he was introduced to by John Graham in 1932. Smith used the notion of “drawing in space” as a point of departure and pioneered a distinctly American form of the phenomenon using industrial materials. In fact, it is believed that Smith was the first in America to make welded metal sculptures. The art historical references in Tanktotem X do not end at Picasso. The work’s geometric forms have Modernist influences, their collation evocative of a cubist collage by Juan Gris; the brilliant simplicity of the sculpture’s construction also carries aesthetic links to Minimalism; and the totem referred to in the title—the Freudian object both desired and taboo—was a motif frequently employed by Surrealists such as Joan Miró. In the fabrication of this unique work, Smith was clearly drawing from a wealth of art historical knowledge.
“Smith’s great achievement was to have understood the sculptural possibilities of Cubism and to have developed them to an absolute limit, far beyond that reached by earlier cubist sculptors” (E. Fry, David Smith, New York, 1969, p. 14). Working to fully exploit the third dimension, the artist abandoned representation for emotionally explosive compositions that set up complex conversations between each disparate part of the whole. Critic Robert Hughes noted that, “[O]ne may say without exaggeration, Smith explored the possibilities of metal sculpture more fully than any artist before or since—more even, than Picasso or Julio González” (Nothing if Not Critical, London, 1987, p. 207). By starting with a historical base, Smith was able to learn from past ideas in an effort to take sculpture further into the unknown.
Standing over five feet tall, Tanktotem X is a powerful assemblage of both physical and abstract forms. Using found materials, together with some specifically fashioned for this work, Smith carves out muscular forms in space. Supported by a vertical steel support, seemingly disparate elements are laid out on a horizontal plane. At one end, a large concave panel marks the beginning of a progression of forms, its curved silhouette reducing to a pair of narrowing protrusions that jut out into the space beyond that is contained by the sculpture itself. Abutting this is a hemispherical shell—slightly elongated on the vertical axis—its compact form acting in an introspective manner as opposed to its extrovertly fashioned neighbor. At the other end of the composition, another disk acts as a counter balance, it solid shape adding weight and substance to the overall sculpture. In between, a progression of forms and voids acts a compositional bridge between the two elements.
One of the most remarkable qualities of this work, however, is Smith’s use of color, something which only rarely made an appearances in his sculpture. In a lecture the artist gave at Bennington College in May 1965, he described the effects of the surrounding landscape had on the chromatic palette of Tanktotem X: “I depended upon the flowers and the tomatoes to carry that one. But it’s a painted sculpture. I actually think that the garden had something to do with—you know, unconsciously—I wasn’t trying to use any colors that were in the garden, but I actually think that the colors I saw influenced the painting of the sculpture” (quoted in C. Lloyd, ed., David Smith Sculpture: A Catalogue Raisonné, 1932-1965, New Haven and London, 2021, p. 216).
Through the 1950s, Smith worked on a number of overlapping series. The Tanktotems, commenced in 1952, feature the incorporation of boiler tank tops as their binding motif. The works in this pivotal series broke new ground by abandoning the form of the pedestal. Each Tanktotem sculpture instead plants itself resolutely on the ground. In a nod to the resultant anthropomorphism, Smith fondly referred to his modern totems as “personages” and arranged them like watchmen on the grounds of his domicile in Bolton Landing, New York. The poet Frank O’Hara wrote that Smith’s “personages” reminded him of “people who are awaiting admittance to a formal reception and, while they wait, are thinking about their roles when they join the rest of the guests already in the meadow” (quoted in M. Perloff, Frank O’Hara: Poet Among Painters, Chicago, 1997, p. 24).
Smith drew inspiration from the iron sculptures of Pablo Picasso and Julio González, the former of which he came across in Cahiers d’art in 1929 and the latter of which he was introduced to by John Graham in 1932. Smith used the notion of “drawing in space” as a point of departure and pioneered a distinctly American form of the phenomenon using industrial materials. In fact, it is believed that Smith was the first in America to make welded metal sculptures. The art historical references in Tanktotem X do not end at Picasso. The work’s geometric forms have Modernist influences, their collation evocative of a cubist collage by Juan Gris; the brilliant simplicity of the sculpture’s construction also carries aesthetic links to Minimalism; and the totem referred to in the title—the Freudian object both desired and taboo—was a motif frequently employed by Surrealists such as Joan Miró. In the fabrication of this unique work, Smith was clearly drawing from a wealth of art historical knowledge.
“Smith’s great achievement was to have understood the sculptural possibilities of Cubism and to have developed them to an absolute limit, far beyond that reached by earlier cubist sculptors” (E. Fry, David Smith, New York, 1969, p. 14). Working to fully exploit the third dimension, the artist abandoned representation for emotionally explosive compositions that set up complex conversations between each disparate part of the whole. Critic Robert Hughes noted that, “[O]ne may say without exaggeration, Smith explored the possibilities of metal sculpture more fully than any artist before or since—more even, than Picasso or Julio González” (Nothing if Not Critical, London, 1987, p. 207). By starting with a historical base, Smith was able to learn from past ideas in an effort to take sculpture further into the unknown.