Songs of the Horizon: David Smith, Music, and Dance
June 24 - September 17
- This event has passed.
The Hyde presents artwork by David Smith!
Stop by the Hyde Collection Art Museum to check out their latest exhibit โSongs of the Horizon: David Smith, Music, and Dance.โ This exhibit can be viewed from June 24 – September 17.
This exhibition, curated by Dr. Jennifer Field, Executive Director of The Estate of David Smith, is organized to commemorate The Hyde Collectionโs sixtieth anniversary as a public museum. It features approximately thirty loans from major private and public collections, including Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Harvard Art Museums, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, and the Estate of David Smith, along with a selection of archival materials from the Estate and works from the Hydeโs permanent collection. This project is the first museum exhibition to focus exclusively on the indelible influence of music and dance on Smithโs work in painting, drawing, and sculpture.
About the artist:
David Smith (1906-1965) settled permanently in Bolton Landing, New York in 1940 with the artist Dorothy Dehner. The Adirondack region that encompasses Bolton Landing and Glens Falls became inseparable from Smithโs artistic practice. A dialogue with natureโthe mountain landscape, the change of seasons, the flight of birdsโis reflected in his artwork in every medium. In the 1940s, inspired by modern dance and concerts held both locally and in New York City, he made inventive works of art that depict dancing figures and musicians playing instruments. Music was intrinsic to Smithโs life and work. โI use the music as company in the manual labor part of a sculpture,โ he later explained.
As part of Smithโs commitment to the area, he became deeply involved with the foundation of The Hyde Collection prior to his death in 1965. Mrs. Charlotte Hyde, founder of the Museum, was a friend of David Smith. There were very close bonds between the sculptor and Mrs. Hydeโs curators, Otto Wittman and Jerry Dodge, and also her long-time friend and Chair of her trustees, the artist and experimental filmmaker Douglass Crockwell. Smith was one of the Collectionโs earliest trustees. He curated The Hydeโs very first summer exhibition, installing his own sculptures on the lawn. In the spirit of that inaugural event,ย Songs of the Horizon: David Smith, Music, and Danceย will feature two graceful, vertical sculptures from later in Smithโs career measuring up to twelve feet tall, that poetically evoke the essence of music, dance, and nature. This exhibition also includes a selection of works by Dorothy Dehner In acknowledgment of the vital role she played in Smithโs early career and his life in the Adirondacks.