1. Catch-up: "Field" Painting (see last week's lecture notes)
   1. Mark Rothko (b. Marcus Rothkowitz in Russia, 1903, to US as child, suicide 1970)
   2. Barnett Newman (b. Baruch Newman 1905, d. 1970)
   3. Ad Reinhardt (b. Adolf 1913, d. 1967)
2. The problem of "direct" sculpture... out of surrealism
   1. Alexander Calder (1898-1976)
   2. Isamu Noguchi (1904 -1988)
   3. Joseph Cornell (1903-1972)
3. The perceived solution: David Smith's (1906-1965) "drawing in space"

Slide List

Calder Josephine Baker 1926
Calder White Frame 1934
Calder Little Spider 1940
Calder The Big Sail (MIT) 1965-66
Dali Sleep 1937
Lipton Lynched 1933
Lipton Sea King 1955
Moore Recumbent figure 1938
Noguchi Lunar Infant 1943-44
Noguchi Kouros 1944
Noguchi Avatar 1947
Noguchi Curtain of Dream 1952
Cornell Hotel Eden 1945
Cornell Penny Arcade (Lauren Bacall) 1945-46
Picasso Woman in the Garden 1929-30
Roszak Chrysalis 1937
Roszak Nantucket Whaler 1946
Smith Interior for Exterior 1939
Smith Blackburn: Song of an Irish Blacksmith 1949-50
Smith Blue Construction 1938
Smith Medal for Dishonor: Bombing Civilians 1939
Smith Cubi series 1961-65
Smith Hudson River Landscape 1951
Smith TankTotem IV 1953

Miro's work directly inspired Alexander Calder.

Alexander Calder, Little Spider, 1940

Other surrealist sculptors:

Henry Moore, Recumbent figure, 1938
Isamu Noguchi, Kouros, 1944
Joseph Cornell, Untitled (Penny Arcade Portrait of Lauren Bacall), 1945-46

Throughout the 40's, painting seemed to lead sculpture in innovation, and in the 1950s even Noguchi was seeking a rough, energetic sculpture that would possess some of the energy of the new Action painting.

Salvador Dali, Sleep, 1937
Isamu Noguchi, Avatar, 1947
Isamu Noguchi, Curtain of Dream, 1952

Some came via abstraction, some via social realism:

Theodore Roszak, Chrysalis, 1937
Seymour Lipton, Lynched, 1933

But in their turn toward process, and their search for a "direct" mode of making sculpture, they came together.

Theodore Roszak, Nantucket Whaler, 1946
Seymour Lipton, Sea King, 1955

David Smith, Blue Construction, 1938
David Smith, Medal for Dishonor: Bombing Civilians, 1939

Smith was already established as an abstract sculptor when he made the Medals for Dishonor.

David Smith, Hudson River Landscape, 1951
David Smith, TankTotem IV, 1953
Picasso, Woman in the Garden 1929-30

Picasso's welded iron sculptures were shown to Smith by John Graham -- Smith adopted the techniques used by Picasso (and Julio Gonzalez) to achieve his signature style of "drawing in space."

David Smith, Blackburn: Song of an Irish Blacksmith, 1949-50

Many of these works present incommensurate views from different aspects.

The 1960s Cubi series presented highly "worked" surfaces that appealed to the pictorial sensibilities of Smith's favorite critic, Clement Greenberg.

David Smith, Cubi series, 1964