User:RichardMcCoy/NYU

Throwback (1/3) is a public artwork by American artist Tony Smith, located in the Marsh & McLennan Companies (MMC) Plaza at 1166 Avenue of the Americas in New York, New York, United States.

Description
The sculpture was constructed by welding sheets of aluminum together at precise angles to form a geometric, four-sided, hollow ring. The sculpture is coated with a flat-black industrial exterior paint, either called Retardo or polyurethane. Currently sited in a brick-lined fountain basin, the sculpture rests on three points.

Smith named the sculpture while in a retrospective mood. He explains, “In a certain sense the piece is unique. I did not have the prospect or opportunity of making a large architectural sculpture so I decided to do something more conventional. I made an object that recalls an earlier period.”

According to modern art historian Sam Hunter, “His major piece, Throwback, is based on the regular geometric solids of this familiar combination of tetrahedrons and octahedrons, the basic space frame for all his ambitious, conjoined sculpture. Although it is less eccentric or fanciful in its spatial sprawl than some of his complex monumental sculpture its shifting silhouettes and planar configurations can still dazzle the eye of the circulating spectator.” The catalogue text continues to support this, stating that “Throwback shows all the hallmarks of Smith’s ponderous yet graceful and versatile formal constellations.”

Smith created Throwback in an edition of three; this one is the first, while the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) has the second in its collection (Throwback (2/3)). The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden has Throwback (3/3), which is on view. All three were created between 1976-1979 and are aluminum painted black and equal in size.