Room 2
Smith’s sketchbooks and writings from the 1930s and 1940s records his growing awareness of social and political issues. He participated in union activities that supported artists and, from February 1937 to August 1939, was assigned to the sculptural division of the Roosevelt government’s Federal Art Project, a programme providing jobs for artists during the Depression.
He became increasingly concerned about events in Europe, notably the rise of fascism and the Spanish Civil War. Inspired by Sumerian seals and German medals from the First World War that he had seen in the British Museum, he began a series of bronzes entitled Medals
for Dishonor (1938-40). In a satirical spirit Smith commemorated the avarice and destruction that accompanies war, rather than acts of valour. The medals were made largely at night, over the course of three years. Their imagery draws upon artists such as Bosch, Bruegel and Goya and Picasso’s Guernica. Smith also used material from newspapers and medical books to form his own brutal and surrealist language. Crafted using jewellery-making and dentistry tools, the Medals include spectres, ominous birds, preying insects and anthropomorphic symbols of sexual assault,demonstrating the rich iconographic sources for Smith’s work of the 1940s.
By the beginning of the 1940s Smith had absorbed many European influences into his sculptural vocabulary but his own artistic vision was also emerging as independent and self-confident. The resonance between painting and sculpture, expanding inside and outside the frame, becomes a consistent theme. His work also began to embody intense personal experiences: Widow’s
Lament (1942) for example, relates to the death of his father in 1939.
Head as a Still Life, 1940
Cast iron and patinated bronze
Private Collection, Courtesy of Dorothy Goldeen Art Advisory, Santa
Monica, California
Widow's Lament, 1942
Steel and bronze, on wood base
The Estate of Seymour Finkelstein, New York
Medals for Dishonour 1938-40
Propaganda for War, 1939-1940
Cast bronze
The Estate of David Smith, Courtesy Gagosian Gallery
The Fourth Estate, 1939-1940
Cast bronze
The Estate of David Smith, Courtesy Gagosian Gallery
Munition Makers, 1939
Cast bronze
The Estate of David Smith, Courtesy Gagosian Gallery
Diplomats: Fascist and Fascist Tending, 1938-1939
Cast bronze with silver patina
The Estate of David Smith, Courtesy Gagosian Gallery
Private Law and Order Leagues, 1939
Cast bronze
The Estate of David Smith, Courtesy Gagosian Gallery
War Exempt Sons of the Rich, 1939-1940
Cast bronze
The Estate of David Smith, Courtesy Gagosian Gallery
Cooperation of the Clergy, 1939
Cast bronze
The Estate of David Smith, Courtesy Gagosian Gallery
Death by Gas, 1939-1940
Cast bronze
The Estate of David Smith, Courtesy Gagosian Gallery
Bombing Civilian Populations, 1939
Cast bronze
The Estate of David Smith, Courtesy Gagosian Gallery
Sinking Hospital and Civilain Refugee Ships, 1939
Cast bronze
The Estate of David Smith, Courtesy Gagosian Gallery
Death by Bacteria, 1939
Cast bronze
The Estate of David Smith, Courtesy Gagosian Gallery
Reaction in Medicine, 1940
Cast bronze
The Estate of David Smith, Courtesy Gagosian Gallery
Elements Which Cause Prostitution, 1939
Cast bronze
The Estate of David Smith, Courtesy Gagosian Gallery
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Food Trust, 1938
Cast bronze
The Estate of David Smith, Courtesy Gagosian Gallery
Scientific Body Disposal, 1939
Cast bronze
The Estate of David Smith, Courtesy Gagosian Gallery
