
Taking the Measure of David Smith
Michael Brenson’s David Smith: The Art and Life of a Transformational Sculptor, the first biography of the celebrated twentieth century artist, was published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux this week. Brenson contributed the lead essay to David Smith Sculpture: A Catalogue Raisonné, 1932–1965, published last year by The Estate of David Smith and Yale University Press. Christopher Lyon, its editor and a contributing essayist, spoke with Brenson recently about his Smith biography. Brenson, the artistic director of the Jonathan and Barbara Silver Foundation, was an art critic for the New York Times