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Tony Smith (sculptor) American, 1912 - 1980 Die, model 1962, fabricated 1968 steel with oiled finish overall: 182.9 x 182.9 x 182.9 cm (72 x 72 x 72 in.) gross weight: 500 lb. Gift of the Collectors Committee 2003.77.1 On View |
Die was one of Tony Smith's first steel sculptures and the inspiration for much of his later work. Its form was derived from an ordinary 3 x 5 inch index card file, and for its fabrication, Smith telephoned the Industrial Welding Company in Newark, New Jersey, whose sign, "You specify it; we fabricate it," had caught his eye on trips to and from New York.
The artist's specifications for the sculpture were as follows: "a six-foot cube of quarter-inch hot-rolled steel with diagonal internal bracing." The dimensions were determined, according to Smith, by the proportions of the human body. He explained that a larger scale would have endowed Die with the stature of a "monument," while a smaller one would have reduced it to a mere "object." It is this simple yet profound observation about scale that placed Die at the center of key artistic debates. Weighing approximately 500 pounds and resting on the museum floor, its size asks us to walk around it and experience the relationship between ourselves, the object, and its surrounding space sequentially, for Die never reveals more than two of its sides at any one time.
The sculpture's deceptively simple title invites multiple associations: it alludes to Die casting, to a random roll of the dice, and even, ultimately, to death. As Smith remarked, "Six feet has a suggestion of being cooked. Six foot box. Six foot under." Rationality, evoked by Die's purely geometric configuration, is countered by the sculpture's brooding presence. Meaning becomes relative rather than absolute, something generated through the interplay of word and object. Weaving together strains of architecture, industrial manufacture, and the found object, Smith radically transformed the way sculpture could look, how it could be made, and how it could be understood.
The artist's use of geometric form, industrial materials, and impersonal surfaces relates his work to his architectural background and to minimalist art of the mid-1960s; however, he also embraced the heroic and humanistic attitudes associated with abstract expressionist art of the 1950s. Smith was a pivotal figure who bridged two generations, and Die is now recognized as a classic icon of post-war American art. The artist owned this version of the work until his death in 1980. It sat in his backyard where, despite its "black and malignant" presence, his young daughters delighted in its enigmatic mystery.
Biographical Note
Smith was born in 1912 in South Orange, New Jersey. Although he studied architecture at the New Bauhaus in Chicago and apprenticed with Frank Lloyd Wright, he was largely self-taught as an artist. In the mid-1950s, while still a practicing architect, Smith took various teaching positions in New York and began exploring sculpture with his students. His initial sculptural investigations (at first consisting of wooden and cardboard maquettes) were an extension of his architectural pursuits. In 1964, at the age of fifty-one, his work was included in an important museum exhibition, formally launching his career as a sculptor. Tony Smith subsequently received numerous awards and commissions from prestigious institutions and museums throughout Europe and the United States.