“An essential account of America’s greatest sculptor . . . [A] magnum opus.” ―Marjorie Perloff, The Times Literary Supplement The landmark biography of the inscrutable and brilliant David Smith, the greatest American sculptor of the twentieth century. David Smith, a pioneer of Abstract Expressionism, did more than any other sculptor of his era to bring the plastic arts to the forefront of the American scene. Central to his project of reimagining sculptural experience was challenging the stability of any identity or position―Smith sought out the unbounded, unbalanced, and unexpected, creating works of art that seem to undergo radical shifts as the spectator moves from one point of view to another. So groundbreaking and prolific were his contributions to American art that by the time Smith was just forty years old, Clement Greenberg was already calling him “the greatest sculptor this country has produced.” Michael Brenson’s David Smith: The Art and Life of a Transformational Sculptor is the first biography of this epochal figure. It follows Smith from his upbringing in the Midwest, to his heady early years in Manhattan, to his decision to establish a permanent studio in Bolton Landing in upstate New York, where he would create many of his most significant works―among them the Cubis , Tanktotems , and Zigs . It explores his at times tempestuous personal life, marked by marriages, divorces, and fallings-out as well as by deep friendships with fellow artists like Helen Frankenthaler and Robert Motherwell. His wife Jean Freas described him as “salty and bombastic, jumbo and featherlight, thin-skinned and Mack Truck. And many more things.” This enormous, contradictory vitality was true of his work as well. He was a bricoleur, a master welder, a painter, a photographer, and a writer, and he entranced critics and attracted admirers wherever he showed his work. With this book, Brenson has contextualized Smith for a new generation and confirmed his singular place in the history of American art. "An essential account of America's greatest sculptor . . . [A] magnum opus . . . Brenson’s meticulously researched and detailed account of the life is an important contribution to our understanding both of Smith and of his time . . . Essential reading." ―Marjorie Perloff, Times Literary Supplement "Michael Brenson’s biography, the first devoted to the artist, is an important contribution to an ongoing process of discovery . . . [Brenson] brings a winning steadiness and humility to the daunting challenges involved in writing the first full account of a major artistic figure. His descriptions of individual works and groups of works are pithy, evocative . . . [He navigates] tumultuous relationships with serene common sense. There’s a sensitive evenhandedness about his accounts of Smith’s two marriages, with weight given both to the women’s travails and his unhappy restlessness." ―Jed Perl, The New York Review of Books "Brenson’s rich, authoritative biography conjures not only the man and his myth, but also the ruptures of modernity and the tensions between abstraction and representation, set against a backdrop of global change." ―Hamilton Cain, The Atlantic "Gripping . . . Brenson has written the life of David Smith in all its fullness, without passing judgment. The book will leave readers, as it has left me, with a lot to think about." ―Svetlana Alpers, PBK "Ambitious, and hard to put down. Brenson is erudite without being pretentious, and one delight of the reading effort is revisiting twentieth-century artists and their worlds. A second pleasure is the way the story stamps and folds the flat tin of the tired epithet 'David Smith, great American sculptor' into a dimensional, voluminous person." ―Janna Malamud Smith, The Threepenny Review "A seamlessly written narrative and one where every sentence is documented and rooted in fact. It’s the most important book on David Smith published to date, and a major contribution to art history. Brenson [is] one of America’s foremost art historians . . . If you read one artist biography, make it this one.” ― Farah Nayeri "[A] large lacuna has just been filled by David Smith: The Art and Life of a Transformational Sculptor , the long-awaited biography by Michael Brenson . . . [Brenson] does full justice to his subject. Throughout the narrative, art and life intertwine like a double helix. Brenson brings together the many and varied aspects of Smith’s art and personality, penetrating readings of individual artworks, and you-are-there descriptions of the creative process . . . It’s hard to imagine that there will ever be a fuller, deeper, more nuanced portrait of this artist." ― Eric Gibson, The New Criterion "Brenson has seen and read and heard everything, including, crucially, a long round of last best oral interviews with witnesses never to speak out again. No one will ever know more than Brenson does now." ― Brandt Junceau, The Brooklyn Rail "B