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     MHD Citizen Username: Mayhewdrive Post Number: 3681 Registered: 5-2001  |
The Star-Ledger (Newark, NJ), Jan 9, 2003 p017 In sculpture, South Orange sees honor; Foundation will obtain replica of Smith design to fete native son. (NEW JERSEY) Tony Smith started sculpting in the early 1960s in Vermont, while recovering from a car accident. By 1966, Smith had his first solo exhibit. By 1967, he was on the cover of Time magazine, which called him "Master of Monumentalists." A former architectural apprentice to Frank Lloyd Wright, Smith's modern geometric-shaped sculptures, most of which were large and displayed outdoors, brought him international recognition. Smith, who died in 1980, grew up in South Orange, and people in the town want to honor him by purchasing one of his sculptures and displaying it near the downtown train station, where a gazebo stands. "The town is 100 percent behind this," said Mayor Bill Calabrese [HUH????]. "It's a nice way of thanking somebody who toiled in this community. He was proud to say he was from South Orange." Smith grew up on Stanley Road in the historic Montrose section of South Orange in a large Irish Catholic family. He studied architecture at the famed New Bauhaus school in Chicago and soon after got an apprenticeship with Wright. He took up painting and lived in California, New York and Germany. During the 1940s and '50s, he forged friendships with artists Mark Rothko and Jackson Pollock. While he had moderate success as a painter, he became best known as a sculptor. His sculptures are in collections at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim and the Whitney in New York, and the National Gallery of Art and the Hirshhorn in Washington, and other major museums around the world. "The town should honor such a great person," said Judy Wukitsch, the director of the Gallery of South Orange. Wukitsch's husband, the late Lennie Pierro, first had the idea for the town to acquire a Smith sculpture. Pierro was an artist and professor who co-founded the gallery with his wife. After Pierro died just over a year ago, an arts foundation was started in his name. The foundation's first project is to acquire the Smith sculpture. "One of my husband's goals was to get a sculpture to honor this native son," said Wukitsch, who estimates it will cost around $500,000 to obtain a Smith sculpture, which are made-to-order under the supervision of his estate. "They are museum-quality. Normally a village of 17,000 people would not go after one," said Cheryl Arnedt, who organized a fund-raiser last November to help pay for the sculpture. She is applying for grants and the foundation is looking for donations. The foundation is looking at three different black steel sculptures, which may be as large as 15 feet high and 20 feet wide. One of the designs under consideration is a replica of a Smith sculpture that is in front of Hunter College in Manhattan. Another Smith sits outside Princeton's School of Architecture, where Smith taught in the 1970s. Sarah Auld, director of the Tony Smith Estate, said she has been in close contact with Smith's widow, Jane, who is supportive of the idea of the community obtaining one of his sculptures. The Smiths raised their family in South Orange for a time, and both their daughters graduated from Columbia High School. "It's wonderful," Auld said. "We're very enthusiastic." Supporters want to put the sculpture in a place where it can be appreciated by the most of people - in the middle of the renovated downtown shopping district below the train platform. They hope the sculpture is in place in two years. |
