Tony Smith with family, ca. 1914
1912
Anthony Peter Smith is born September 23 in South Orange, New Jersey to Josephine McCabe Smith (1883-1941) and Peter Anthony Smith (1882-1940). He is the second of seven children, and a third-generation descendant of an Irish family. His father is a mechanical engineer and the primary stockholder in the A. P. Smith Manufacturing Company, a municipal waterworks factory founded in the late 1800s by Anthony Peter Smith, his grandfather. His mother is a homemaker whose family owned a boiler works factory.
Tony with sister Mary at Garden of the Gods, Colorado, 1915
1915
Travels cross-country with his parents and older sister by railroad to see the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco. In later years, he will recall seeing the Palace of Fine Arts designed by Bernard Maybeck at the Exposition, as well as the Ancestral Pueblo habitation sites they visited in the Southwest.
1916–25
Diagnosed with tuberculosis. To speed his recovery, he is moved out of the family home and into a one-room pre-fabricated house on the property; a nurse is hired to care for him.
By 1919 health has improved and he returns to live in the family house. Graduates from Sacred Heart Elementary School in Newark in 1926.
1926–30
Commutes from South Orange to New York City to attend St. Francis Xavier, a Jesuit high school, graduating in December 1930.
Untitled, ca. 1936, oil on canvas board, 8 × 10 in. (20.3 × 25.4 cm)
1931–36
In January 1931 joins a drawing class taught by George Bridgman at the Art Students League in Manhattan. Attends Fordham University in the Bronx in the spring and summer of 1931, and Georgetown University from September 1931 to January 1932.
Returns to South Orange in 1932; operates a second-hand bookstore on Broad Street in Newark, New Jersey. Visits Modern Architecture: International Exhibition, a show introducing the emergent International Style of architecture, at the Museum of Modern Art, and is deeply impressed by the work of Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius, and Mies van der Rohe.
Works for the A.P. Smith Manufacturing Company as a toolmaker, draftsman, and purchasing agent (1933–36).
Attends evening classes at the Art Students League (1935). Studies anatomy with George Bridgeman, drawing with George Grosz, and painting with Vaclav Vytlacil. Rents apartment in New York City's Greenwich Village.
Frequents the Gallatin Collection of Living Art at New York University and the Museum of Modern Art where in 1936 he visits the exhibitions Cubism and Abstract Art and Fantastic Art, Dada, Surrealism.
Sketch, 1938, graphite on paper, 12 1/8 × 9 1/8 in. (30.8 × 23.2 cm), detail
1937–39
Moves to Chicago to study architecture at the New Bauhaus where László Moholy-Nagy is director. Teachers include György Kepes (drawing, lettering, layout, design), Alexander Archipenko (sculpture), and Henry Holmes Smith (photography). Particularly enjoys Hin Bredendieck’s metal workshop and is appointed head of the workshop by Moholy-Nagy. Befriends artists Fritz Bultman, Laurence Cuneo, Gerald Kamrowski, and Theodore van Fossen. With van Fossen and others, protests the curriculum’s emphasis on industrial over fine arts and opposes Moholy-Nagy’s choice of George Fred Keck as architecture instructor.
In the spring of 1938, travels to Critchell, Colorado to visit his friend, the writer John Feeley, where he builds his first structure, a chicken coop.
With Laurence Cuneo sees Frank Lloyd Wright’s Ben Rebhuhn House in Great Neck, Long Island.
In 1939, begins work as a carpenter’s assistant and bricklayer at Wright’s Suntop Homes in Ardmore, Pennsylvania; eventually becomes clerk of the works. After a residency at Taliesin, Wright’s home in Spring Green, Wisconsin, is appointed architect's representative and superintendent of construction for Wright’s Armstrong House in Ogden Dunes, Indiana.
Ted van Fossen, Laurence Cuneo, Tony Smith, ca. 1940
1940–42
Forms architectural partnerships with Theodore (Ted) van Fossen and Laurence Cuneo doing business as Smith van Fossen and Cuneo (until 1941), and Smith van Fossen (1941–44). In 1940, with van Fossen and Cuneo, designs home for Robert and Mary Gunning in Blacklick, Ohio, incorporating Wright's philosophy of organic archictecture.
Father dies December 1, 1940 from a sudden heart attack. Mother dies a few months later on March 31, 1941.
Designs home for Henry and Betty Stone in Bernardsvile, New Jersey. Due to budget constraints the house is built in stages over a numbers of years and is finally completed in 1950.
Moves back to Greenwich Village in 1941.
In 1942, through Bultman, meets Jackson Pollock and Tennessee Williams; and on New Year's Eve, meets the actress Jane Lawrence.
Tony Smith, Jane Lawrence, and Tennessee Williams, 1943
1943–45
In 1943, moves from New York to Los Angeles with Jane Lawrence (née Jane Brotherton); they marry on September 25 of that year in Santa Monica, with Tennessee Williams as the only witness. They live in a storefront loft in Hollywood at 1652 North Harvard Boulevard.
Meets photographer Edmund Teske, and filmmakers John and James Whitney. Has various jobs, including working for a plant nursery and for Viennese furniture designer, Paul Frankl.
Between 1943 and the summer of 1945, writes The Pattern of Organic Life in America, in which he develops philosophical ideas and personal iconography central to future work.
In 1944, begins design for a house for his father-in-law, L. L. Brotherton, in Mt. Vernon, Washington, completed in 1945.
In summer 1945, returns to East Coast. Designs and builds a painting studio for Fritz Bultman in Provincetown, Massachusetts. Friends Hans Hofmann and Anne Ryan are there; meets Buffie Johnson, who introduces him to Barnett and Annalee Newman.
The Smiths move to New York City in the fall and eventually settle at 51 West 16th Street.
Barnett Newman, Jackson Pollock, and Tony Smith at the Betty Parsons Gallery, 1951. Photo Hans Namuth.
1946–50
Begins teaching art to children at Hartley House, a settlement house in Manhattan (1946-52). Also teaches at New York University Graduate School of Education (1946-51), including the class, Visual Arts in Contemporary Culture.
Becomes close friends with Abstract Expressionist artists, including Barnett Newman, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Theodoros Stamos, and Clyfford Still.
Designs exhibition installations for New York galleries and museums, notably Betty Parsons Gallery (1948–53).
Designs a model for a Roman Catholic church, with clerestory windows painted by Pollock.
Fred Olsen Sr. House. Photo Dean Kaufman
1951–52
Architectural commissions increase; and around 1951 hires two assistants.
Builds houses for Theodoros Stamos in East Marion, New York (1951), and Orlando and Barbara Scoppettone in Irvington, New York (1952).
Teaches architectural theory and practice at Cooper Union (1950–52), and at Pratt Institute Evening School (1951–52), architecture and three-dimensional design. Takes Cooper Union students for a nighttime drive on the unfinished Jersey Turnpike, which changes many of his ideas on art.
Designs and builds home for Fred Olsen in Guilford, Connecticut (1951–52). The designs master plan creates three separate but related buildings working as an interdependent whole. Commission includes design and build of a separate house for Olsen's son on nearby property.
Louisenberg #8, 1953–54, oil on canvas, 20 × 27 3/4 in. (50.8 × 70.5 cm)
1953
Leaves New York City to join Jane, who is singing opera in Germany. After a brief visit with friends in Stuttgart in the summer, the Smiths tour Europe, visiting Italy, France, and Spain. For Smith, the highlight of the trip is seeing Le Corbusier's Unité d'Habitation apartment complex in Marseilles.
1954
The Smiths settle in Nuremberg. Daughter Chiara (Kiki) is born on January 18th.
After visiting the Le Corbusier buildings and reading his treatise, The Modular, Smith develops the Metric Proportional Grid, emphasizing human scale and its relation to surrounding spaces and objects.
Work abroad includes numerous unrealized and visionary architectural designs (among them Orient Express, Glass House, and Roman Catholic Church in an Ideal American Landscape.
Makes gridded circle paintings, including the Louisenberg series.
Throne, steel, painted black, 28 × 39 × 32 in. (71.1 × 99.1 × 81.3 cm)
1955–57
In May of 1955, the Smiths return to the family home on Stanley Road in South Orange. Twins Seton and Beatrice are born on July 24.
In addition to his work as a draftsman for the architectural firm of Edelbaum and Webster (1955–56), accepts teaching positions at various institutions, including the Delahanty Institute (1956–57) and Pratt Institute Evening School (1957–60), both in New York.
In July 1956, creates experimental cast-concrete sculptures with Jackson Pollock.
Makes his first titled sculpture, Throne (1956).
Untitled, ink on paper, 8 3/8 × 10 7/8 in. (21.3 × 27.6 cm)
Collection Baltimore Museum of Art
1958–61
Teaches at Bennington College, Vermont (1958–61); courses include painting and "Space," a basic architectural design class. Students assist in the construction of Bennington Structure.
In 1959, designs new galleries for French & Co. at 980 Madison Avenue, New York.
Designs and builds a painting studio for Betty Parsons in Southold, New York, and designs a guest house on the same property a few years later (1960-63).
Submits an entry for the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial competition (1960).
In the spring of 1961 is seriously injured in an automobile accident in Vermont and as a result, develops a blood condition, polycythemia (marked by an unusual number of red cells in the blood). During convalescence creates bold, graphic ink drawings and begins to make sculptural shapes by taping together small tetrahedral modules. Explores the formal possibilities of the cube in drawing, painting, and sculpture.
Construction of plywood mock-ups in Orange, NJ, 1966. Photo Rudy Burckhardt
1962–64
Begins teaching in the Art Department at Hunter College, New York (1962–71).
In 1962, orders Black Box, his first steel sculpture, fabricated at Industrial Welding Co. in Newark. Free Ride and Die are fabricated that same year at Industrial Welding.
Designs museum for the art collection of S.C. Johnson & Son (Johnson Wax).
With Arthur (Art) File, develops a system for using plywood sheets to make mock-ups, realizing the sculptural models at full-scale (1963).
In November 1963, Samuel Wagstaff, Jr., curator at the Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut, visits Smith in South Orange, having heard a lecture by artist Raymond Parker discussing some of Smith's new work.
Wagstaff selects The Elevens Are Up (1963) for Black, White, and Gray (1964), a group show that features mostly young artists, including Anne Truitt, Agnes Martin, Robert Morris, and Frank Stella, among others. This is the first public exhibition to include Smith's work; he is fifty-one years old.
Tony Smith, Bryant Park, New York, 1967. Photo David Gahr
1965–67
In the spring of 1966, Free Ride is included in the group exhibition, Primary Structures at the Jewish Museum in New York.
In the fall of 1966, Tony Smith: Two Exhibitions of Sculpture, his first solo exhibition, is on view simultaneously at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford and the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia. Press includes “Talking with Tony Smith,” Artforum, December 1966.
A Time magazine cover article ("Master of the Monumentalists," Time, October 13, 1967) dramatically increases Smith's public profile, as does the outdoor exhibition of eight large-scale sculptures in Bryant Park early in 1967. Other important installations include Maze, in the exhibition Schemata 7, Finch College Museum of Art, New York, 1967, and Smoke, in Scale As Content: Ronald Bladen, Barnett Newman, Tony Smith, at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1967.
Source, Documenta 4, Kassel, Germany, 1968
1968–70
In 1968, Wandering Rocks opens at Fischbach Gallery, the first gallery exhibition in the U.S. Willy is included in XXXIV Venice Biennale, and Source at Documenta 4, Kassel, Germany.
Envisions various unrealized site-specific projects, including Lunar Ammo Dump (1968) for the University of Illinois at Chicago Circle, and Mountain Piece (1968) for Valencia, CA.
In 1968, Asteriskos is shown at HemisFair in San Antonio, Texas and is later installed permanently at the McNay Art Museum in San Antonio.
A plywood mock-up of Smog is assembled in the Orange, New Jersey backyard using components from Smoke (1969).
In the spring of 1969, takes part in the Aruba Research Program where he sees the Guadirikiri bat caves. That same summer, designs Bat Cave, exhibited at Expo '70 in Osaka, Japan, and in the Art and Technology Program exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 1971.
Haole Crater (1969) and Hubris (1969) are designed but not realized, for the University of Hawaii, Honolulu, where he taught during the summer of 1969.
Installation of Gracehoper, Detroit Institute of Arts, 1972
1971–74
In 1971, receives a Fine Arts Medal from the American Institute of Architects.
Eighty-One More (a plywood mock-up at one-fifth the intended size) is installed in the lobby of the Museum of Modern Art in 1971, coinciding with the installation of Barnett Newman's Stations of the Cross.
In 1972, Gracehoper, at the time the largest freestanding outdoor sculpture in the United States, is installed at the Detroit Institute of Arts.
A plywood mock-up of Smug is asssembled in the backyard in Orange, New Jersey in 1973, adding an additional layer of extended octahedrons to Smog, completing a sequence that began with Smoke in 1967.
Travels to Carrara, Italy in 1973 to work with carved marble, creating For Dolores (Flores para los muertos), Fermi, and other designs based on topological Klein surfaces.
In 1974, receives a Distinguished Teaching of Art Award from the College Art Association, and a Creative Arts Award in Sculpture from Brandeis University.
Tennessee Williams, Jane Smith, and Tony Smith at Pace Gallery, 1979
1975–80
Begins teaching at Princeton University (1975–78).
Conceives The Fourth Sign, Jim’s Piece, and Ten Elements in 1975.
In 1976, conceives Lipizzaner, One-Two-Three, and Throwback, and in 1979, conceives and installs Last for the Ohio Building Authority in Cleveland.
Elected to the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters (1979)
Later sculptures are exhibited at Pace Gallery in 1979, Tony Smith: Ten Elements and Throwback.
Conceives Untitled (Five C's), Untitled (Atlanta), Untitled (Row I), and Untitled (Row II).
In 1980, returns to Hunter College as an adjunct professor and is later named professor emeritus.
Smith dies of a heart attack in New York City on December 26, 1980 at the age of 68.