Smith, Tony

Tony Smith is considered one of the most important pioneers of minimalism; personal expression, symbolism, or narrative content take a back seat in favor of pure form. His monumental works are often simple combinations of geometric shapes such as cubes, prisms, or polyhedral structures, usually painted black, rarely in other uniform colors. Even color does not serve the artist as an expression, but rather as a means of neutralizing form.

Although the sculptures were mostly manufactured industrially, on closer inspection they certainly live up to the term ‘artwork’, as can be seen, for example, in the “Wandering Rocks” or the stretched work “The Snake is Out.” And doesn’t the massive “Gracehoper” actually look like a grasshopper, even though Smith presumably deliberately composed the name from the elements “Grace” and “Hope“?