David Smith: Sculpture and Drawings

Rating:
Summary: pros and cons
Review: This is a great survey of David Smith's career. It has both color and black and white photographs of pieces from just about every different major stage of his carreer (except the Medals For Dishonor). It also has good but brief biographical information, and perhaps most outstanding is the heap of articles, transcribed talks, and interviews interspersed throughout the book, which are tremendously informative about his philosophy and development. The book does suffer for being too broad and not really covering in depth any of his stages or series. Expect, therefore, a couple pictures of the Voltron series, maybe two Tanktotems, a handful of Cubi, etc... Another frustration is that most of the paintings are in black and white, as well as a number of the painted sculptures; it is helpful but unsatisfying that the captions tell the reader what colors are used! The book is likely overpriced, being worth maybe fifty or sixty dollars, but given a real lack of material on Smith, this may be the best accesible option.

Rating:
Summary: pros and cons
Review: This is a great survey of David Smith's career. It has both color and black and white photographs of pieces from just about every different major stage of his carreer (except the Medals For Dishonor). It also has good but brief biographical information, and perhaps most outstanding is the heap of articles, transcribed talks, and interviews interspersed throughout the book, which are tremendously informative about his philosophy and development. The book does suffer for being too broad and not really covering in depth any of his stages or series. Expect, therefore, a couple pictures of the Voltron series, maybe two Tanktotems, a handful of Cubi, etc... Another frustration is that most of the paintings are in black and white, as well as a number of the painted sculptures; it is helpful but unsatisfying that the captions tell the reader what colors are used! The book is likely overpriced, being worth maybe fifty or sixty dollars, but given a real lack of material on Smith, this may be the best accesible option.