Moses

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Tony Smith, American, 1912–1980

Moses, 1967–68; fabricated 1969

Painted mild steel
The John B. Putnam Jr. Memorial Collection, Princeton University
y1969-104
Hear the Curator (y1969-104)

Tony Smith came from a South Orange, New Jersey, family of builders and had an earlier career as an architect; smoothly welded planes were a characteristic of his work. As with all of Smith’s works, this piece was conceived as an abstract geometric sculpture and was given its title, Moses, only after the artist had fabricated a mock-up. Here, the parallel upright forms suggested to Smith the horns in Michelangelo’s Moses. As the artist explained: “Mistranslation resulted in Michelangelo’s peculiar presentation of a horned Moses. My sculpture, without previous intent, perpetuates this curiosity.” In contrast to the Cor-Ten steel often seen in Princeton’s sculpture, Smith preferred “mild” steel, which is lighter and more easily manipulated and joined. 

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In reply to an inquiry about the relevance of subject matter in his work and the significance of the title Moses, Smith wrote, “My sculptures are always conceived and developed as abstract geometric structures. . . . They were given titles only after a maquette (at least) had been made. In some cases the work had already been put together as a full-scale mock-up or fabricated in steel before its image became clear and it was named. Occasionally titles . . . came to me all at once. Moses is an instance of the latter. The parallel uprights suggested the horns in Michelangelo’s Moses. We know that these strange attributes were the result of a misunderstanding by the Latin Vulgate of the Hebrew word ‘shone,’ derived from the word meaning ‘horn,’ and used figuratively to denote rays or flashes of light proceeding from a luminous object, for example, the head of Moses. . . . Mistranslation resulted in Michelangelo’s peculiar presentation of a horned Moses. My sculpture, without previous intent, perpetuates this curiosity.”

Detail of Michaelangelo’s Moses, San Pietro in Vincoli, Rome

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Tony Smith's account of a nightly ride on the unfinished New Jersey Turnpike

"When I was teaching at Cooper Union in the first year or two of the '50s, someone told me how I could get on to the unfinished New Jersey Turnpike. I took three students and drove from somewhere in the Meadows to New Brunswick. It was a dark night and there were no lights or shoulder markers, lines, railings or anything at all except the dark pavement moving through the landscape of the flats, rimmed by hills in the distance, but punctuated by stacks, towers, fumes and colored lights. This drive was a revealing experience. The road and much of the landscape was artificial, and yet it couldn't be called a work of art. On the other hand, it did something for me that art had never done. At first I didn't know what it was, but its effect was to liberate me from many of the views I had had about art. It seemed that there had been a reality there which had not had any expression in art."

"The experience on the road was something mapped out but not socially recognized. I thought to myself, it ought to be clear that's the end of art. Most paintings look pretty pictorial after that. There is no way you can frame it, you just have to experience it. Later I discovered some abandoned airstrips in Europe -- abandoned works, Surrealist landscapes, something that had nothing to do with any function, created worlds without tradition. Artificial landscape without cultural precedent began to dawn on me. This is a drill ground in Nuremberg, large enough to accommodate two million men. The entire field is enclosed with high embankments and towers. The concrete approach is three 16-inch steps, one above the other, stretching for a mile or so."

-- from "Talking with Tony Smith" by Samuel J. Wagstaff Jr., Artforum (Dec. 1966)