David Smith

David Smith is the most original American sculptor in the decades after WWII. He is most original because of his welded metal sculptures and his massive painted geometric forms. Smith was never actually trained as as sculptor but learned to work with metal when he worked as a riveter. He dropped out of college after only one year, and moved to New York City where he worked a taxi driver, a salesman, a carpenter, and studied painting under John Sloan and Jan Matulka. I liked his Cubi XII sculpture because of simplicity and clean lines and how he made the metal look smooth and shiny.