The exhibition Four Sculptures at Hauser & Wirth Zurich brings together four distinct steel sculptures by the American artist David Smith (1906-1965). The painted sculptures represent major sculpture groups David Smith created in the early 1960s. Smith is considered as one of the foremost artists of the 20th Century and the sculptor most closely associated with the abstract expressionist movement. The show at Hauser & Wirth’s Bahnhofstrasse 1 gallery in Zurich features the sculptures Zig I, Gondola II, Primo Piano II, and Untitled (Zig VI).

David Smith was born in Decatur, Indiana in 1906. He worked as an automobile welder before moving to New York City, where he studied painting at the Art Students League. In 1929 he bought property in Bolton Landing, in the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York. He would settle there permanently in 1940. Smith’s metalworking experience inspired his choice to make sculpture by welding steel, eschewing the conventional sculptural methods of casting and carving. He is widely acknowledged to have created the first welded metal sculpture in the United States and for his ability to use steel as an expressive, sculptural material.

David Smith: Four Sculptures / Hauser & Wirth Zurich. Zürich (Switzerland), December 21, 2022.