Art: Iron Was in His Name

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If his conception of sculpture was "heroic," it was because Smith really saw those totems and sentinels, Cubis and sacrificial altars, gateways and chariots, not just as emblems of art history but as things to be reinvented. They were a proof of the selfs limitless powers to project itself upon the world. In other words, he possessed a belief in the possibilities of sculpture that has now vanished from Western art. "Oh, David," wrote his best friend Robert Motherwell, in one of the most moving valedictions ever offered to a dead artist by a live one, "you were as delicate as Vivaldi and as strong as a Mack truck." And so he was. —By Robert Hughes