About Robert Smithson
Robert Smithson (January 2, 1938 – July 20, 1973) was an American artist known for sculpture and land art who often used drawing and photography in relation to the spatial arts. His work has been internationally exhibited in galleries and museums and is held in public collections. He was one of the founders of the land art movement whose best known work is the Spiral Jetty (1970). == Early life and education == Smithson was born in Passaic, New Jersey, and spent his childhood in Rutherford until he was nine. In Rutherford, the poet and physician William Carlos Williams was Smithson's pediatrician. When Smithson was nine, his family moved to the Allwood section of Clifton. He studied painting and drawing in New York City at the Art Students League of New York from 1954 to 1956 and then briefly at the Brooklyn Museum Art School. == Career == === Early work === He primarily identified as a painter during this time, and his early exhibited artworks had a wide range of influences, including science fiction, Catholic art and Pop art. He produced drawings and collage works that incorporated images from natural history, science fiction films, classical art, religious iconography, and pornography including "homoerotic clippings from beefcake magazines". Paintings from 1959 to 1962 explored "mythical religious archetypes" and were also based on Dante's Divine Comedy such as the paintings from 1959 Wall of Dis and The Inferno, Purgatory and Paradise, that correspond to the Divine Comedy's three-part structure.
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