Page 14 - Studio International - August 1966

A sculpture whose artistic ancestor is the flat planes of cubism. This sculpture is One of the continuing series of sculptures, called Cubi, which began in 1956 and
made of numerous elements welded together, a kind of 'double collage', as he amounted to some two dozen pieces of varying great sizes, but always made of
has said, with two fronts, the one we see and its reverse ... It is a presence of a welded stainless cubes. The steel was burnished with a power hand grinder.
kind that has inspired a generation.

for old farm machinery or anything metal that would fit One day in my kitchen in New York we were talking.
his Agricola concepts, a series of machine sculptures that He became as eloquent as Homer: 'I like to eat, I like to
began twenty years ago. see people eat, I don't like the presence of women in
For some years during daylight hours, David Smith restaurants, they pick, and where they are, the portions
worked on four separate streams of sculptural concepts are smaller ... Of any place outside Italy, I like Locke-
simultaneously—painted pieces in which colour was of Ober's Men's Bar best. Hunger is a masculine experience.
major importance, stainless steel structures, a series of I have eaten during the Depression twenty-five-cent
iron 'wagons' with bronze wheels, and heavy welded meat loaf with free salad and rolls, and with gin and a
structures or raw iron. At night, he continued an endless small beer chaser (ten cents). I've made my sculpture
series of drawings (`the delicate pursuit of my life'). that way too, before love or food. Only my small
These were often nudes from life. daughters have priority over anything.
Oh David ! You were as delicate as Vivaldi, and as `Locke-Ober's! Lobster bisque, baked oysters. Broiled
strong as a Mack truck ! bay scallops with bacon—to hell with greens! You stick
One of the few great meals I have had outside France a quarter of lemon under the scallop serving pan to give
was at David's in the spring of 1964: fresh lettuce with out odour. Black bread with frosty edges. Sweet butter.
red edges from his garden, a pink leg of lamb roasted in Things I don't get in the mountains. Hot Indian Pudding
a marinade of ginger, soy sauce, and Madeira, fresh with vanilla ice cream melting in the centre. And true
black bread, sweet butter, and bottles of 1953 Pommard. chicken broth, great before fried soft-shell crabs, both
We mourned the passing of Henri Soule's The Cote preceded by icy dry Martinis. Better than France!'
Basque in New York City, but David's real love was Maybe. But what matter? A man expresses himself,
Boston's Locke-Ober. his personal taste. But his sculpture is universal.
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