Bowdoin College Museum of Art

Preview image of work. spray and stencil (?) on paper, untitled 24421

2014.11

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untitled

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Artist

David Smith (David Rowland Smith) (Decatur, Indiana, 3/9/1906 - 5/23/1965, South Shaftsbury, Vermont)

Title

untitled

Creation Date

1959

Century

mid-20th century

Dimensions

17 3/4 x 11 3/4 in. (45.09 x 29.85 cm)

Object Type

drawing

Creation Place

North America, United States

Medium and Support

spray and stencil (?) on paper

Credit Line

Gift of Hilton and Esta Kramer

Copyright

This artwork may be under copyright. For further information, please consult the Museum’s Copyright Terms and Conditions.

Accession Number

2014.11

For sculptor David Smith, drawing was fundamental to realizing his ideas in both two and three dimensions. “Untitled” hails from a series of “sprays” produced in Bolton Landing on Lake George, New York. For his sculptures, Smith typically laid out elements on the studio floor to test out spatial arrangements before welding them together. The spray drawings and paintings are similarly executed: the artist arranged objects on paper or canvas and sprayed enamel paint over them, leaving a ghostly silhouette of the physical object. Smith used these sprayed works as an experimental testing ground for actions and improvisations. His sculptures are renowned for their sensitivity to how objects shape negative spaces. The sprays equally evoke atmospheres that render ambiguous the essential questions of illusion and reality, or absence and presence.

Keywords: abstract Abstract Expressionism black and white related to sculpture sprayed