THE SKETCHBOOKS OF WILLIAM SMITH: day 5

Today I am posting a garden of faces selected from Smith's sketchbooks:

Even with just a quick sketch, Smith captured the personalities of the middle eastern musician (above) or the American housewife (below).

Note how Smith is never lazy.  He does not draw these faces from a template that he learned in art school; he pays attention and works to understand and capture the unique qualities in each face.  Otherwise, what would be the point of sketching?

THE SKETCHBOOKS OF WILLIAM SMITH: day 4

 I was amused by the number of drawings of backs of heads in William Smith's sketchbooks.
 

 Smith drew tirelessly, and when he went to concerts, lectures or meetings he often brought his sketchbook with him.  It's a measure of his talent that, even when he was limited to the backs of people sitting in front of him, he still found artistic challenges :

In this next sketch, a floral arrangement takes priority over the rows of ladies at some event:

Smith did life sketches at hockey games...

 ...and at the beach...

 ...and at performances...

...and at a whole lot of other places.

THE SKETCHBOOKS OF WILLIAM SMITH: day 3

During World War II and in the years that followed, William A. Smith traveled throughout the Far East.  Everywhere he went, he took his sketchbook.

The result was an extraordinary collection of insightful drawings from China, Japan, Burma and other countries.  Here is a small sampling:

 

Smith sketched local clothing and rituals, making a careful record of the features that interested him:

Smith made several drawings of this puppeteer.  Smith was so intrigued by the puppets that he brought a set back to the U.S.  According to tradition, the puppeteer must place hoods over their heads at night to keep the puppets from seeing. 

Smith's sketchbooks, overflowing with drawings such as these, contain a marvelous record of his Asian travels.

THE SKETCHBOOKS OF WILLIAM SMITH: day 2

Over his career, William A. Smith developed a remarkable collection of friends and acquaintances.  He knew artists such as Joan Miro and Ben Shahn.  As the president of UNESCO's International Association of Art (with members in 70 different countries), he traveled and connected with artists all around the world.  He was also president of the American Watercolor Society, and socialized with artists, writers and performers as a member of the famed Dutch Treat Club.

He sketched many of these people at events or informal settings:

The great poet Carl Sandburg was a good friend of Smith's

Sandburg's hands

Duke Ellington

 

Burl Ives

Radio celebrity Henry Morgan

British illustrator Paul Hogarth

Artist Adolf Dehn

Band leader Paul Whiteman

Smith's sketchbooks are filled with dozens and dozens of faces, hands, even shoes of creative people he met along the way.  One of the things I enjoy most about these portraits is that they were not illustrations commissioned by a client, but rather purely personal works reflecting the international camraderie of the artistic community.  

THE SKETCHBOOKS OF WILLIAM A. SMITH

Each day this week I will be posting unpublished drawings from the personal sketchbooks of famed illustrator William A. Smith.

I have previously described my admiration for Smith,  a gold medal winning artist who, in addition to working for the top publications of his day,  traveled to exotic locations around the world from the 1940s to the 1980s.  An artist of insatiable visual curiosity, he always took sketchbooks with him and recorded his impressions of the people he met and the places he saw.

Some of his sketches are highly detailed, such as this meticulous working drawing of a colorful balcony in Rangoon, Burma:

While other sketches are distilled to their barest minimum, such as this insightful portrait:

Some of the drawings are exaggerated and impressionistic, such as this sketch of a burly Russian in a big fur coat:

... while other drawings are exquisitely calibrated, such as this sensitive drawing of a Japanese woman:

By viewing this face at several times its original size, we can begin to understand the subtleties of Smith's technique.  Here, he indicated an eyebrow and hair line with just the point of one pencil, then came back with the flat of a different pencil to achieve the effect he wanted. And note the importance of even miniscule changes in the lines of her jaw and throat in conveying his understanding of the forms.

Note the contrast between Smith's precise treatment of her face, and his broad, lush lines for her hair and kimono:

As you might expect, the sketchbooks contain the obligatory figure studies of people Smith saw on his travels.  No matter how accomplished he became, Smith never tired of making these basic studies:

Smith spent long hours traveling to remote locations under primitive conditions, but his sketchbooks tell us that he made the best use of his travel time:  

The thousands of drawings in Smith's sketchbooks remind us that he was a virtuoso with a pencil.  One of the great things about the internet is that drawings such as these, which might otherwise remain unseen in museum archives or family collections, can now reach a wider audience.

This is going to be a good week.

IS IT ART? ASK A LAWYER

When the sculptor Constantin Brancusi shipped his revolutionary sculpture, Bird in Space to the United States in 1928, it triggered a firestorm from artists, critics and academics.   

Art News denounced Brancusi's "meaningless sculptures."  Art authority Thomas Jones called the statue "too abstract and a misuse of the form of sculpture."  Poet Jacque Prevert helpfully added, "Down with Brancusi!" 

Others, such as Edward Steichen, Marcel Duchamp and Ezra Pound argued in support of the sculpture.

The battle might still be raging today if the lawyers hadn't stepped in.

The puzzled customs clerk who opened the crate on a New York dock had to decide how to classify the object in order to charge a tariff.  Was it art or not?  If it wasn't, the shipper would have to pay a $240 tariff for "manufactured objects of metal."

It didn't look like any art he had ever seen, so the customs clerk classified it as a manufactured object.  Brancusi filed an appeal and in the famous legal case of Brancusi v. United States, a judge with a busy court docket and limited resources set out to decide if the statue was art.  Unlike a gallery owner, the judge had no conflict of interest. Unlike an academic, he wasn't trying to promote his research to enhance his career.  Unlike an artist, he could not fondle ambiguous endings indefinitely.  His job was to analyze the arguments from both sides and use reason to reach the fairest conclusion he could.   His answer: "while some difficulty might be encountered in associating it with a bird," the sculpture nevertheless qualified as art.

Since Brancusi's day, the definition of art has expanded to the point where it is difficult to identify any boundaries at all.  (As Robert Frost shrewdly recommended, "Don't ever take down a fence until you know why it was put up.")  Art has continued to flee definitions, while the law (which is dependent on definitions) continues to chase after it.

Today, there is a fresh challenge for the law. In New York, the strip club Nite Moves  has filed an appeal claiming it should not be required to pay tax on lap dances because they qualify as art.  The company claims that so-called "couch sales" are exempt as "live dramatic or musical art performances" under the law.  In view of what has transpired with performance art in recent decades, the lawyers will have their work cut out for them.

Yet, I can't think of anyone better qualified to define art in this context than the legal system.