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Susanne Hilberry Gallery

Tony Smith (1912-1980) is internationally known for his monochromic, minimalist sculptures done on a monumental scale.  His sculptural vocabulary has a special place in the development of contemporary form.  Not only is he a pioneer of minimal form, but the quality of animation is unique.  Smith was an architect by profession, coming to sculpt at about 50 years old.  His sculptures are based largely on modular geometric units worked up into large-scale, close-packed tetrahedonal and octahedonal forms.  His complex shapes were arrived at by his playing with model-sized geometrical components that came together in unpredictable ways.  Their presence is powerful and dramatic.  Highly skilled at formal design, Tony Smith was also fanciful and romantic man, and he liked to draw his titles from the works of James Joyce and Samuel Beckett as well as from his deep interest in nature.  Smith always titled his works after the development of the forms.

Selected Public Collections:

DeMenial Museum, Houston, Texas
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge
Dallas Museum of Fine Arts
The Detroit Institute of Arts
The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Princeton University
Seattle Art Museum
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Pepsico Corporation, Purchase, New York
Moderna Musseet, Stockholm
Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota

555 South Woodward Birmingham Michigan 48009 313 642 8250