David Smith
52.7 x 85.1 x 16.2 cm
Anthony Caro purchased Landscape Arch in the Spring of 1969 at David Smith’s studio at Bolton Landing. In the year preceding this he had been in discussion with critic and David Smith Estate executor Clement Greenberg about his desire to purchase a sculpture of Smith’s, in light of the friendship and artistic dialogue they shared. In July 1969 the sculpture arrived in London and Anthony Caro wrote in a letter to Clement Greenberg: ‘Having it around is salutary for me partly because of the standard it demands of my work it sets is awfully high and also because the freedom and looseness is a tonic to the controlled, organised work that I tend to make in England.’ The piece is not mentioned by name although it is certainly Landscape Arch being referred to here in letters between Caro and Greenberg that year.
Provenance
The Artist's Estate
Marlborough-Gerson Gallery, New York
Anthony Caro, London, 1969
Private collection, London
Exhibitions
Willard Gallery, New York / Kleemann Galleries, New York (Willard only). WILLARD/KLEEMANN 1952, no. 20.
New York, Whitney Museum of American Art. David Smith: The Drawings. 4 December 1979 - 24 February 1980. Exhibition catalogue.
Only exhibited at the London iteration of this retrospective at Serpentine Gallery, London, 3 May - 8 June 1980; Exhibition travelled to Detroit, Detroit Institute of Arts, 1 February - 15 March 1981; Berkeley, CA, University of California, Berkeley Art Museum, 9 September - 1 November, 1981.
Literature
Lewis 1952, ill. p. 14.
Fogg 1966, handlist no. 205.
Krauss 1977a, no. 258; fig. 258.