Tony Smith (sculptor)

Tony Smith ( born September 23, 1912 in South Orange, New Jersey, † December 26, 1980 in New York) is one of the most famous American sculptors of the 1960s and is considered one of the most important pioneers of minimalism.

Work

It was only after 1962 created his first monumental sculptures Smith, who was more known as a visionary architect until then. He studied painting and architecture in New York at the New Bauhaus in Chicago, where he worked as an assistant to Frank Lloyd Wright for a few years. More and more he finally turned himself entirely to sculpture, because he could there as opposed to purpose-bound architecture to realize his ideas of the body in space without compromise. Other artists such as Carl Andre, Barnett Newman and Frank Stella realized monumental outdoor sculptures in situ. The sculpture as it left the studio and increasingly took a public space. In 1968 he participated in the documenta 4 in Kassel in the Sculpture Department.

Tony Smith started out as one of the first American sculptor to reduce the sculpture so much that the term ' minimal art ' appears as a natural consequence. His sculptures are simple combinations of geometric forms, reminiscent of archaic structures and therefore appear to the viewer as familiar.

His daughter Kiki Smith works as an installation artist and body art artist.