{"data":{"id":"687","type":"artwork","attributes":{"id":687,"topgoose_id":3828,"portfolio_id":null,"tms_id":687,"title":"Hudson River Landscape","display_artist_text":"David Smith","display_date":"1951","accession_number":"54.14","dimensions":"Overall: 48 3/4 × 72 1/8 × 17 5/16 in. (123.8 × 183.2 × 44 cm)","medium":"Welded painted steel and stainless steel","department":"collection","classification":"Sculpture","credit_line":"Purchase","is_virtual":false,"is_portfolio":false,"portfolio_tms_id":null,"portfolio":null,"edition":"Unique","publication_info":"","description":"\u003cp\u003eDavid Smith, \u003cem\u003eHudson River Landscape\u003c/em\u003e, 1951. Welded painted steel and stainless steel, overall: 48 3/4 × 72 1/8 × 17 5/16 in. (123.8 × 183.2 × 44 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase 54.14. © Estate of David Smith / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York\u003c/p\u003e","object_label":"\u003cp\u003eDavid Smith worked in welded steel to produce what he called “drawings in space.” In \u003ci\u003eHudson River Landscape\u003c/i\u003e, he transformed steel agricultural tool fragments and foundry castoffs into a semi-figurative sculpture. As its title indicates, this work is a landscape, one that, in the artist’s words, “came in part from dozens of drawings made on a train between Albany and Poughkeepsie, a synthesis of ten trips over a 75 mile stretch.” The sculpture\u003ci\u003e \u003c/i\u003eincludes abstracted, but recognizable forms evoking clouds, railroad tracks, and stepped terrain; the spring-thawed, ice-laden Hudson River is airily frozen in steel. But formal considerations are also important. Smith capitalized on steel’s tensile strength and his own welding virtuosity to construct new sculptural forms that balanced mass and weightlessness. While \u003ci\u003eHudson River Landscape\u003c/i\u003e’s outlined, rectangular format recalls Smith’s training as a Cubist painter, the sculpture’s almost calligraphic line moves swiftly in space with a sense of animation and energy akin to the gestural paintings of Smith’s Abstract Expressionist colleagues.\u003c/p\u003e","ai_alt_text":"Abstract metal sculpture with geometric shapes and lines on a white pedestal.","alt_text":null,"visual_description":null,"on_view":false,"created_at":"2017-08-30T15:47:36.000-04:00","updated_at":"2026-02-06T11:59:41.196-05:00","images":[{"id":92286,"url":"https://whitneymedia.org/assets/artwork/687/54_14_vw1_cropped.jpg"}]},"relationships":{"artists":{"data":[{"id":"1232","type":"artist"}]}}}}