Smoke by Tony Smith
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A Monumental Work of Art
This monumental sculpture sits at the entrance to the new Doha Exhibition & Convention Centre (DECC) in West Bay.
Open and inviting, profound yet serene, the giant geometric components of this sculpture fill the surrounding space, towering over people below as they make their way.
A geometric sculpture
Smoke was designed in 1967 by American artist Tony Smith. It's impact was so successful it made the cover of TIME magazine the same year.
The only large-scale work Smith ever created specifically for an interior space, Smoke now enchants passers by in its new outdoor home. This two-tiered aluminum sculpture stands 24 feet tall and is a combination of geometric components, including five tetrahedrons and forty-five extended octahedrons.
The sculpture’s powerful form is based on the artist’s fascination with geometry and the morphology of organic shapes, like crystals and honeycombs.
The first version of the sculpture was made of painted plywood. Another version of Smoke can be seen at LACMA, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
About the Artist
Tony Smith (1912-1980) was an American sculptor, visual artist, architectural designer, and a noted theorist on art. He made more than fifty large-scale sculptures in the final two decades of his life.
Smith’s work is included in leading international collections, such as the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Menil Collection, Houston; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art as well as the Kröller-Müller Museum in the Netherlands, among others.
What's in a name
The title Smoke seemed appropriate to Smith because of the complex spaces created within the sculpture, in which its logic disappears, like smoke.
