Adolph Gottlieb and sculptor David Smith became fast friends in 1933, and remained friends through Smith's death in 1965.
In an interview in 1975, Esther Gottlieb describes Gottlieb and Smith's early relationship
"...We were living in Brooklyn Heights and no amount of conversation or suggestions on the part of anybody else made any difference. David Smith was living on the next block. I can’t remember where he met David, but they were very good friends, and in those days David was a painter. There was a very close relationship between all the artists who lived in the area during the WPA days, because all these men were on what’s called the Easel Project. They were allowed to paint at home, but they had to sign in everyday. Someone suggested as an alternative that one artist’s studio be designated as headquarters so the men could walk to sign in and not have to spend the time and money to go to the center. Adolph’s studio became the headquarters. I don’t know why his studio—it just happened.
We lived on State Street around 1935. State Street goes straight down to the river, and one block over was Atlantic Avenue, which goes down to the shipyards. At that time, down near the waterfront, there was an iron works in connection with the ship-building. Adolph and David would stand at the door and watch them working. David would reminisce about how he was a sheet metal worker, way back. One day they were talking about painting and sculpture and David had some great ideas for sculpture, if he only had facilities for doing them. 'What’s the matter with the Terminal Iron Works,' says he one day as they were walking along. So they stopped in. He told the man that he was a painter and worked in the neighborhood, and he had experience and knew how to acetylene torches, and that he wanted to do a little work. So the man said okay. David went around picking up stuff – all types of metal one could find. With the scrap metal from the yard, David made his first sculpture."
– An Interview with Esther Gottlieb by Stephen Pearson, 1975
Gottlieb and Smith lost touch briefly in the 1940s when Smith moved away from New York City, but they reconnected later in the decade when Smith began making regular trips to New York. One of the ways in which they maintained their friendship was through regular correspondence.
A 1956 letter from Smith to Gottlieb, discussing the death of Jackson Pollock and Smith's frustration with the art world at the time.
"I'm not feuding with Whitney--I'm dropping them...The hell with them and any other person or institution which doesn't value my work as I do. With a family to support and sculpture to make I shouldn't have this attitude, but I suppose its my death defying acts like Jacks [Jackson Pollock]. I seem to be getting more this way--I want equal rights and I don't want museum people or the like to tell me what art is. I want art to be what I make--or not to hear from them."
– David Smith
A letter from Smith to Gottlieb, December 25, 1957
"Dear Adolph
This is a fan letter. Your show at the Museum was great. It was excellently chosen and some of the 1957 works I had not seen, even better. I hope you get some great sales from it. Anyhow for me it was wonderful to see so many over the period.
Seasons Greetings to you and Esther,
David"
a letter from Gottlieb to Smith, December 30th, 1957
"Dear David:
Many thanks for your very nice note. It seems that we have a mutual admiration society, which is a most unusual thing for old friends, and I am very pleased with that..."
Gottlieb Foundation Executive Director, Sanford Hirsch, describes a "sympathy between the two in how they approached material, color, and form." Close relationships can be seen in the paintings and sculpture that Smith and Gottlieb created over the course of their careers.
Adolph Gottlieb, The Sea Chest, 1942, oil on canvas, 26 1/16 x 34 3/16". Currently in the collection of the Guggenheim Museum, New York
David Smith, Home of the Welder, 1945, steel, 533 × 438 × 356 mm. Currently in the collection of the Tate, London
Historian and art critic Karen Wilkin pointed out some similarities between Smith’s The Letter of 1950 and Gottlieb’s Pictographs of the same period.
Adolph Gottlieb, Letter to a Friend, 1948, Oil, tempera, and gouache on canvas, 47 7/8 x 36 1/4"
David Smith, The Letter, c. 1950, 37 5/8 x 22 7/8 x 9 1/4”. Photograph by David Smith
Later works by both artists continue to display many parallels.
Adolph Gottlieb, Spray, 1959, oil on canvas, 90 1/4 x 72 3/8“. Currently in the collection of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC
David Smith. 7 Hours. 1961. Steel, paint, 84 1/2 x 48 x 18” (214.6 x 121.9 x 45.7 cm). Collection Onnasch, Berlin. Photo: Robert McKeever
All Artworks by Adolph Gottlieb ©Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation/Licensed by ARS, NY, NY
All Artworks by David Smith © 2020 The Estate of David Smith / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY.
To see more works by Adolph Gottlieb, click here.
To learn more about David Smith, visit the website of the David Smith Estate.