“David Roland Smith (March 9, 1906 - May 23, 1965) was an American Abstract Expressionist sculptor best known for creating large steel abstract geometric sculptures.”
Traditionally, metal sculpture meant bronze casts, which artisans produced using a mold made by the artist. Smith, however, made his sculptures from scratch, welding together pieces of steel and other metals with his torch, in much the same way that a painter applied paint to a canvas; his sculptures are almost always unique works.
“Smith, who often said, "I belong with the painters," made sculptures of subjects that had never before been shown in three dimensions. He made sculptural landscapes (e. g. Hudson River Landscape), still life sculptures (e. g. Head as Still Life) and even a sculpture of a page of writing (The Letter). Perhaps his most revolutionary concept was that the only difference between painting and sculpture was the addition of a third dimension; he declared that the sculptor's "conception is as free as a that of the painter. His wealth of response is as great as his draftsmanship."[
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Smith_%28sculptor%29
http://www.davidsmithestate.org/
Synopsis
“Among the greatest American sculptors of the 20th century, David Smith was the first to work with welded metal. He wove a rich mythology around this rugged work, often talking of the formative experiences he had in his youth working in a car body workshop. Yet this only disguised a brilliant mind, which fruitfully combined a range of influences from European modernism - Cubism, Surrealism and Constructivism. It also concealed the motivations of a somewhat private man whose art was marked by expressions of trauma. Smith was close to painters such as Robert Motherwell, and in many respects he translated the painterly concerns of the Abstract Expressionists into sculpture. But far from being a follower, his achievement in sculpture was distinctive and influential. He brought qualities of industrial manufacturing into the language of art, and proved to be an important influence on Minimalism.”
http://www.theartstory.org/artist-smith-david.htm
(From Art Story Foundation)
My photo is of the interior of the firebox of a smelter, (a high temperature furnace for melting metal) with its front door momentarily open. In this case they are melting aluminum to be reclaimed. Most of the metal melted in this particular operation is from junked aluminum engine blocks from automobiles. Gosh, I love junkyards. Fire, brimstone, carnage, mayhem, and destruction, what’s not to like? When the attendants opened the door there was an outline of metal forms that looked almost like a three-dimensional drawing in hot metal. It reminded me of the early work of the great American sculptor David Smith. As I wrote last evening I was very interested in linear metal sculpture and Smith’s work was an important inspiration.
http://images.nymag.com/arts/art/reviews/artreview_560.jpg

http://whitney.org/image_columns/0001/5875/54.14_smith_imageprimacy_compressed_640.jpg

http://seanbodley.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/david-smith-austalia-550x412.jpg

http://www.lichtensteiger.de/Images/davidsmith.jpg

http://artcritical.com/gelber/images/smith-agrikola.jpg

His later work had a very different feel than the linear works I focused on with the first links. Here are some of his later and some say his best work.
http://faculty.evansville.edu/rl29/art105/img/smith_cubixviii.jpg

http://www.davidsmithestate.org/bio_files/3_cubis.jpg