
© Estate of David Smith / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY
Image downloads are for educational use only. For all other purposes, please see our Obtaining and Using Images page.

© Estate of David Smith / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY
Image downloads are for educational use only. For all other purposes, please see our Obtaining and Using Images page.

© Estate of David Smith / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY
Image downloads are for educational use only. For all other purposes, please see our Obtaining and Using Images page.

© Estate of David Smith / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY
Image downloads are for educational use only. For all other purposes, please see our Obtaining and Using Images page.

© Estate of David Smith / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY
Image downloads are for educational use only. For all other purposes, please see our Obtaining and Using Images page.

© Estate of David Smith / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY
Image downloads are for educational use only. For all other purposes, please see our Obtaining and Using Images page.

© Estate of David Smith / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY
Image downloads are for educational use only. For all other purposes, please see our Obtaining and Using Images page.

© Estate of David Smith / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY
Image downloads are for educational use only. For all other purposes, please see our Obtaining and Using Images page.

© Estate of David Smith / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY
Image downloads are for educational use only. For all other purposes, please see our Obtaining and Using Images page.









David Smith
American, 1906-1965
Tanktotem IV, 1953
steel
overall: 93 1/2 x 34 x 29 inches (237.49 x 86.36 x 73.66 cm)
Collection Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York
Gift of Seymour H. Knox, Jr., 1957
K1957:15
More Details
Inscriptions
Provenance
Martha Jackson Gallery;sold to the Albright Art Gallery, December 4, 1957
Class
Work Type
Information may change due to ongoing research.Glossary of Terms
David Smith is widely considered to be one of the most influential and resourceful sculptors of the twentieth century. However, the majority of the artist’s knowledge of metal, his primary material, did not come from academic training but rather from real-life experience. During the summer of 1925, Smith worked at a Studebaker factory in South Bend, Indiana. It was there that he learned to rivet, solder, and weld. During World War II, he further applied his skills in the construction of train engines and destroyer tanks. Smith has stated that he was innately drawn to these environments because the “associations the metal possesses are those of this century: power, structure, movement, progress, suspension, destruction, brutality.”
In the early 1930s, after having encountered the metal assemblages of Pablo Picasso and Julio González in photographs, Smith began to make small, three-dimensional works from found materials. Over time, steel came to represent modernity for him. In the early 1950s, the artist began to conceive discrete groups of sculptural works that allowed him to explore the material through multiple permutations. Tanktotem IV is one in a series of ten assemblages hovering on the periphery of abstraction and figuration that Smith made between 1952 and 1960. All carry the title of Tanktotem and are made up of parts derived from steel boilers and tanks the artist purchased from catalogues. The artist halved the circular tops of the boilers, whose surfaces he incised with a calligraphic pattern, and then joined them with narrow metal strips around a kite-shaped middle. Additionally, as the title suggests, the concept of a “totem” pole—an indigenous art form in which carvings representing related individuals are stacked on top of each other—also inspired Smith, who sought to create his own interpretation. Poised on three curving legs, Smith’s anthropomorphic figure is an enduring symbol of universal humanity.
Related Content
-
-
exhibition
Action/Abstraction: Pollock, de Kooning, and American Art, 1940–1976
Learn MoreLearn More -
exhibition
The Long Curve: 150 Years of Visionary Collecting at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery
Learn MoreLearn More -
-
-
publication
Contemporary Art 1942-72: Collection of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery
Learn MoreLearn More -
publication
The Long Curve: 150 Years of Visionary Collecting at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery
Learn MoreLearn More -
publication
125 Masterpieces from the Collection of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery
Learn MoreLearn More -
-