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Lot Essay
Beauty and terror co-exist in Smith's sculpture, and his tenuous relationship is readily captured in his medium: "Possibly steel is so beautiful because of all the movement associated with it, its strength and functions. Yet, it is also brutal: the rapist, the murderer and death-dealing giants are also its offspring" (D. Smith cited in G. Cleve, ed., David Smith by David Smith, New York, 1968, p. 4)
David Smith produced a significant group of sculptures in 1945 and 46 in which he distilled and abstracted the Surrealist and overtly political imagery of his previous work into inventive ambiguous and suggestive forms. Often abandoning the ideals set forth by machine age Constructivism for expressionistically handled abstractions in bronze, Smith's work at this point, shifted towards existential introspection. Mirroring the ideals of the Abstract Expressionist painters, Smith found ways to experiment with forms, "I do not work with conscious and specific conviction about a piece of sculpture. It is always open to change and new association. It should be a celebration, one of surprise, not one rehearsed." (Cited in Jane Harrison Cane, David Smith, exh. cat., 1966, p. 99)
While most of Smith's sculptures, paintings and drawings were a reaction to external issues, some of these sculptures, including Spectre of Mother, treat intensely personal subjects not commonly addressed in the medium of sculpture. His works during this time were increasingly involved in psychological introspection and issues of presence and self-discovery. It was after his viewing of the show "Fantastic Art, Dada and Surrealism" exhibition of December 1936, that Smith would embark on a decade long exploration of Surrealism and its many facets. The death of Smith's father in 1939, may have also heightened the emergence of a more inwardly self-reflective nature in the artists work during this period.
Spectre of Mother is a deeply personal work that on the surface examines Smith's own relationship with his mother, which at times was highly tumultuous. His mother was an austere Methodist schoolteacher, obsessed with respectability and instilling discipline. As a consequence of his Mother's dominance, Smith rebelled against authority for most of his life. In this work, Smith confronts his Methodist family, specifically his mother according to Karen Wilkin "who appears to have been a powerful advocate of piety, property, and hard work. And was not at all supportive of his artistic development." (K. Wilkin, David Smith, New York, 1984, p. 36).
The shapes and forms of Spectre of Mother, are quite literally based off of Smith's own sketches of the praying mantis the formal similarities are clearly evident in the sculptural plane. The work is based on a number of drawings and sketches that Smith made of insects in his notebooks, page after page are filled with scraps of saved magazine photos and images of odd insects and fish. All of which testify to his reliance on visual information. "I cannot conceive of a work and buy materials." Smith notes, "I need a truckload before I can work on one. To look at it everyday, to let it soften, to let it break in segments, plans, lines etc., wrap itself in hazy shapes. Rarely the Grand Conception, but a preoccupation with parts. I start with one part, then a unit of parts, until a whole appears." (David Smith 'Notes on My Work' Arts Magazine, New York, February 1960.)
The displacement of anatomical parts and symbolic expresses Smith's own fears and urges and delves into his subconscious. Time and time again in history we have seen the female, in horror and longing as both victim and victimizer of male sexuality. She is often represented as a crustacean or insect-like form. The aggressiveness with which the figure in Spectre of Mother is treated in these fantasies of brutal erotic assault graphically conveys their content. Smith's wife Dorthy Dehner has said that "the praying mantis held a special horror for Smith, perhaps because it is a female creature which devours males." (K. Wilkin, David Smith, New York, 1984, p. 36).
Formally Spectre of Mother is terrifying and beautiful, graceful and imposing. The psychological torment and the sadistic misogyny projected by this sculpture are clearly indebted to the works of Picasso, Gonzalez, Giacometti and Ernst. Giacometti's Woman with Her Throat Cut is a particularly vicious image: the body is splayed open, disemboweled, arched in a paroxysm of sex and death. Eros and Thanatos-desire and destruction. Smith takes all of these influence into account in Spectre of Mother as the body parts of the female figure are translated into schematic abstract forms, which includes the fierce insect-weapon imagery-of the female torso, the spur and hind leg motif and most notably the anthromorphic form resembling the large and unsightly head of a praying mantis borne on a greatly lengthened prothorax. The mantis hovers over her pray with predatory-like claws and spiny arms, which grasp the strange phallus like spindle, reminiscent of Smith's winged cannon figures, and dangle the victim over the edge of the sculptural plane in a sort of gruesome and acrobatic dance.
The dichotomy between terror and beauty first appears in the Medals for Dishonor, a series of anti-war medals that embodied Smith's political views on the atrocities of war, and they would continue throughout his career. Extending the sculpture's vitality are its inherent layers of duality. Fluctuating between pre-history and modernity, brutality and eroticism, splendor and dread, Spectre of Mother does not assume a static, singular meaning.
David Smith produced a significant group of sculptures in 1945 and 46 in which he distilled and abstracted the Surrealist and overtly political imagery of his previous work into inventive ambiguous and suggestive forms. Often abandoning the ideals set forth by machine age Constructivism for expressionistically handled abstractions in bronze, Smith's work at this point, shifted towards existential introspection. Mirroring the ideals of the Abstract Expressionist painters, Smith found ways to experiment with forms, "I do not work with conscious and specific conviction about a piece of sculpture. It is always open to change and new association. It should be a celebration, one of surprise, not one rehearsed." (Cited in Jane Harrison Cane, David Smith, exh. cat., 1966, p. 99)
While most of Smith's sculptures, paintings and drawings were a reaction to external issues, some of these sculptures, including Spectre of Mother, treat intensely personal subjects not commonly addressed in the medium of sculpture. His works during this time were increasingly involved in psychological introspection and issues of presence and self-discovery. It was after his viewing of the show "Fantastic Art, Dada and Surrealism" exhibition of December 1936, that Smith would embark on a decade long exploration of Surrealism and its many facets. The death of Smith's father in 1939, may have also heightened the emergence of a more inwardly self-reflective nature in the artists work during this period.
Spectre of Mother is a deeply personal work that on the surface examines Smith's own relationship with his mother, which at times was highly tumultuous. His mother was an austere Methodist schoolteacher, obsessed with respectability and instilling discipline. As a consequence of his Mother's dominance, Smith rebelled against authority for most of his life. In this work, Smith confronts his Methodist family, specifically his mother according to Karen Wilkin "who appears to have been a powerful advocate of piety, property, and hard work. And was not at all supportive of his artistic development." (K. Wilkin, David Smith, New York, 1984, p. 36).
The shapes and forms of Spectre of Mother, are quite literally based off of Smith's own sketches of the praying mantis the formal similarities are clearly evident in the sculptural plane. The work is based on a number of drawings and sketches that Smith made of insects in his notebooks, page after page are filled with scraps of saved magazine photos and images of odd insects and fish. All of which testify to his reliance on visual information. "I cannot conceive of a work and buy materials." Smith notes, "I need a truckload before I can work on one. To look at it everyday, to let it soften, to let it break in segments, plans, lines etc., wrap itself in hazy shapes. Rarely the Grand Conception, but a preoccupation with parts. I start with one part, then a unit of parts, until a whole appears." (David Smith 'Notes on My Work' Arts Magazine, New York, February 1960.)
The displacement of anatomical parts and symbolic expresses Smith's own fears and urges and delves into his subconscious. Time and time again in history we have seen the female, in horror and longing as both victim and victimizer of male sexuality. She is often represented as a crustacean or insect-like form. The aggressiveness with which the figure in Spectre of Mother is treated in these fantasies of brutal erotic assault graphically conveys their content. Smith's wife Dorthy Dehner has said that "the praying mantis held a special horror for Smith, perhaps because it is a female creature which devours males." (K. Wilkin, David Smith, New York, 1984, p. 36).
Formally Spectre of Mother is terrifying and beautiful, graceful and imposing. The psychological torment and the sadistic misogyny projected by this sculpture are clearly indebted to the works of Picasso, Gonzalez, Giacometti and Ernst. Giacometti's Woman with Her Throat Cut is a particularly vicious image: the body is splayed open, disemboweled, arched in a paroxysm of sex and death. Eros and Thanatos-desire and destruction. Smith takes all of these influence into account in Spectre of Mother as the body parts of the female figure are translated into schematic abstract forms, which includes the fierce insect-weapon imagery-of the female torso, the spur and hind leg motif and most notably the anthromorphic form resembling the large and unsightly head of a praying mantis borne on a greatly lengthened prothorax. The mantis hovers over her pray with predatory-like claws and spiny arms, which grasp the strange phallus like spindle, reminiscent of Smith's winged cannon figures, and dangle the victim over the edge of the sculptural plane in a sort of gruesome and acrobatic dance.
The dichotomy between terror and beauty first appears in the Medals for Dishonor, a series of anti-war medals that embodied Smith's political views on the atrocities of war, and they would continue throughout his career. Extending the sculpture's vitality are its inherent layers of duality. Fluctuating between pre-history and modernity, brutality and eroticism, splendor and dread, Spectre of Mother does not assume a static, singular meaning.