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Augusta Stylianou Gallery 
Anthony Peter Smith, "Tony," was born in South Orange, New Jersey to a waterworks manufacturing family started by his namesake and grandfather, A. P. Smith. Tony contracted TB as a youth and his family constructed an isolation ward in the backyard in an effort to protect his fragile immune system. He was attended to by a nurse to maintain his health and tutors to keep up with his schoolwork. The medicine he was given came in little boxes which he used to form cardboard constructions and when he could, he visited the waterworks factory to marvel at the machines and fabrication processes. After the TB cleared up, Tony attended a Jesuit high school and spent two years at Georgetown University. He was disillusioned and felt no direction at Georgetown so he returned to New Jersey and opened a bookstore, worked at the family factory and attended courses in the evening at the Art Students League of New York. In 1937, he moved to Chicago to attend the New Bauhaus but again found himself disillusioned. He began working for Frank Lloyd Wright as an office clerk, was introduced to Wright's modular concrete blocks and discovered himself in Wright's creative studio. Career While with Wright, Smith worked with other apprentice's on the Gunning House aka Glenbrow before deciding to strike out on his own. Despite his lack of formal architectural training or a license, he was commissioned to design and build several homes including studios for Theodoro Stamos, Betty Parsons and a sprawling compound for Fred Olsen. Despite these successes, the architect/client relationship frustrated Smith enough that he gravitated toward his artwork. Smith continued to paint in abstract geometric composition and found himself teaching a basic design course at Hunter College. One class assignment consisted of forming maquettes out of cigarette box cardboard, he then asked his students to increase the scale of their designs by 5 times with regular cardboard which startled students and teacher alike as powerful objects began to take shape. In 1956, while sitting in a colleagues office, he was drawn to form of a simple file cabinet. He phoned a local fabricator and commissioned a box 2' x 3' x 2' in size. Although the welders assumed he was crazed, they treated the project with the utmost craftmanship and the result was a stunning form to Smith. He had discovered a sculpting process that he continued to hone. His first exhibitions were in 1964. Allied with the minimalist school, Tony Smith worked with simple geometrical modules combined on a three-dimensional grid, creating drama through simplicity and scale. During the 1940s and 1950s Smith became close friends with Barnett Newman, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, and Clyfford Still, and his sculpture shows their abstract influence. Smith was also a teacher in various institutions including New York University, Cooper Union, Pratt Institute, Bennington College and Hunter College and was a leading sculptor in the 1960s and 1970s. Smith is considered a pioneer of the American Minimal art movement. He was asked to anchor the seminal 1966 show at the Jewish Museum in New York entitled Primary Structures. Smith was asked to teach a sculpture course at the University of Hawaii in Manoa during the summer of 1969. He designed two unrealized works, Haole Crater(a recessed garden) and Hubris but eventually created The Fourth Sign that was sited on the campus. His Hawaii experience also generated fodder for his "For..." series whose initials are friends and artists he met during his time in Manoa. A major retrospective, "Tony Smith: Architect, Painter, Sculptor," was held at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1998. Tony met his wife, opera singer, Jane Lawrence, in New York in 1943. They were married in Santa Monica with Tennessee Williams as his best man. He was the father of artists Chiara "Kiki" Smith, Seton Smith and the underground actress Beatrice (Bebe) Smith (Seton's twin), who died in 1988. In 1961, Smith was injured in a car accident and subsequently developed a blood condition which produces a large number of red blood cells called polycythemia. His health was always questionable and deteriorated until he succumbed to a heart attack at age 68. The Estate of Tony Smith is represented by the Matthew Marks Gallery in New York. Public artworks United States California * Marriage, 1961, Clos Pegase Winery, Calistoga
* Olsen House, 1953, Guilford
* Moondog, 1998–99, National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden, Washington
* Throwback, 1976–79, The Marguiles Collection at the WAREhOUSE, Miami
* The Keys to. Given! 1/3, 1965, High Museum of Art, Atlanta
* The Fourth Sign, 1976–77, University of Hawaii campus, Honolulu
* Marriage, 1961, Pappajohn Sculpture Garden, Des Moines
* Gracehoper 2/3, 1971, Kentucky Center for the Arts, Louisville
* Lipizzaner, 1976–78, New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans
* Spitball 3/3, 1961, Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore
* For Marjorie, 1961–77, MIT campus, Cambridge
* Spitball 50/50, 1970, University of Michigan Art Museum, Ann Arbor
* Amaryllis 2/3, 1965, Walker Sculpture Garden, Minneapolis
* Free Ride 2/3, St. Louis Art Museum, St. Louis
* Willy, 1/3, 1962, University of Nebraska-Lincoln campus
* Moses, 1/3, 1969, Princeton University campus, Princeton
* The Snake is Out[6] 1/3, 1962, Empire State Plaza, Albany
* For P.C. 2/6, 1969, The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland
* Night, 1962, Haverford College, Haverford
* Willy, 2/3, 1978, Dallas Museum of Art courtyard, Dallas
* Smog, 1969–70, McCardell Bicentennial Hall, Middlebury College, Middlebury
* Untitled, 1966, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond
* Stinger/One Gate 1/3, 1967-1968(wood), 1999(steel), Olympic Sculpture Park, Seattle
* Wandering Rocks 2/5, 1967, The Bradley Family Foundation Sculpture Garden, Milwaukee
Canada * Black Box, 1962, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa
* Amaryllis 3/3, 1965, Shizuoka Prefectural Museum of Art, Shizuoka
* Wandering Rocks 5/5, 1967, Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo
* Marriage 1/3, 1961, Oslo AP = artist's proof Other Work * Throne, 1956 1. ^ David Gregory, writer and mutual friend of Tennessee Williams per Amy Canonico, Museum Assistant, Modern & Contemporary Art, Yale University Art Gallery
* Busch, Julia M., A Decade of Sculpture: the New Media in the 1960s (The Art Alliance Press: Philadelphia; Associated University Presses: London, 1974) ISBN 0-87982-007-1
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