Title

“From Dreams and Visions and Things Not Known”: Technique and Process in David Smith’s Drawings

Name

Dr. Richard Mulholland

Affiliation

Royal College of Art, London

Supervisors

Dr. Narayan Khandekar, Dr. Harriet Standeven

Date of completion

June 2010

Key words

David Smith, Drawing, Egg yolk, Tempera, Magna, Acrylic, Car paint, Alkyd, Nitrocellulose, Ethics, Sculpture, Texture, Tactility, Tacit Knowledge, Steel, Rust.

Abstract

For the American sculptor, David Smith (1906–1965), drawing was a language to replace words. It was the subconscious immediacy of drawing that allowed formal concepts to take shape during the laborious process of welding steel. In the 1950s, Smith’s sculptural output increased dramatically in both scale and quantity. At the same time, his drawings acquired a separate identity, largely independent of his sculpture. However, it appears that Smith in advocating, conceptually at least, the fusion of painting and sculpture, also made discreet reference to his sculptural work via techniques and materials employed in drawing. Smith’s interest in the addition of textural elements to his drawing media for example, provides substantial evidence of his extension of drawing into three dimensions and marked determination that there was no demarcation between drawing and sculpture within his concept.

This thesis investigates the tacit knowledge involved in the creation of drawings by the American sculptor, David Smith (1906-1965). The intimate relationship between drawings and sculpture in Smith’s work is well-known, yet has not been explored from a technical perspective. The complex material relationships that exist between the two are investigated below via the examination of a number of Smith’s works from 1950-1965, and a hypothesis that argues for a simultaneous and synergistic material relationship between them is proposed, suggesting that Smith may have used materials in drawing that both extended drawing into three dimensions and that resonate with materials used in his steel sculpture.

Durability in Smith’s work is discussed in terms of his use of his extensive investigation into quality materials - both industrial and artistic - as a function of his adoption of an industrial studio practice. Despite his use of ostensibly durable materials however, many of Smith’s works in both sculpture and drawing have aged poorly. This raises questions about the true durability of his media, why they have deteriorated, and how an understanding of the tacit in Smith’s work might be crucial for decisions made for their conservation. In this context, current discussion on identifying an approach to the deterioration of a substantial number of Smith’s iconic drawings from the 1950s based on sound understanding of his process is juxtaposed with the decision in the 1970s – also ostensibly to redress or preserve artistic intent - to remove deteriorated paint from a number of his unfinished sculptures by the then Executors of Smith’s estate.

The results provide several important observations: Firstly, that Smith was considerably more experimental with his drawing media than previously considered. Secondly that he included textural materials that provided physicality to his medium, but that also often suggest reference to his sculptural work. Thirdly, that Smith’s interest in subtle surface nuance and texture provides substantial evidence of his extension of drawing into three dimensions and marked determination that there was no demarcation between drawing and sculpture in the conception of his work, and finally, that such important nuance and sometimes hidden detail might easily be lost over time as a result of aging, deterioration, storage or deliberate intervention.

How to access the dissertation

Available at Ethos, British Library (http://ethos.bl.uk/Home.do) or contact author at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Previous education and/or work experience

Richard Mulholland is a Paper Conservator at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

He has a BA (Hons.) degree in Art History from The University of Leicester, UK (1996), a Masters degree in Conservation of Fine Art from Northumbria University, Newcastle, UK (2000), and a PhD from the Royal College of Art/V&A, London, UK (2010).

Richard was Senior Research Assistant at Northumbria University (2000-2002), where he studied the use of low voltage X-radiography for the examination of works of art on paper. He has worked as a Paper Conservator at The National Library of Ireland in Dublin (1997-98), The Straus Centre for Conservation and Technical Studies at Harvard (2002-04), The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (2004-05), and was Artists Rooms Paper Conservator at the Tate during 2009. He has also acted as external examiner for the Doctoral programme at The Departament de Restauració, Facultat de Belles Arts, University of Barcelona, Spain.

Current position

Paper Conservator, Victoria & Albert Museum

Contact details

3 Victoria Gate
1A Victoria Road
Oxford
OX2 7LS

Tel: 07738009229
Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it