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Spiral of Pumice

Artist/Maker (American, 1938–1973)
Date1970
MediumPencil on white paper
DimensionsOverall: 24 × 19 in. (61 × 48.3 cm)
Credit LineFund for Contemporary Art
Object number1970.79A
Status
Not on view
Copyright© Estate of Robert Smithson / Visual Artists and Galleries Association (VAGA), New York, NYMore Information
In the mid-1960s Smithson began a series of minimalist sculptural works that delved into questions of environment, geography, site, and nature. These culminated in his monumental Spiral Jetty of 1970 that was installed in Utah's Great Salt Lake, and which used rocks and materials from the bank of the lake to create a spiral-shaped form that referred to such ancient earthworks as Ohio's snake mounds or Egypt's pyramids. This drawing was made by Smithson at the time he was working on that project.
Exhibition History
Selections from the Permanent Collection: Landscape
  • Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin, OH (June 15, 1993 - August 19, 1993 )
Changing Visions of the North American Landscape
  • Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin, OH (October 24, 2000 - January 28, 2001 )
Modern Art in America: 20th-Century Works on Paper from the Allen Memorial Art Museum
  • Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin, OH (November 15, 2003 - September 2, 2004 )
Out of Line: Drawings from the Allen from the Twentieth Century and Beyond
  • Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin, OH (September 1, 2009 - December 23, 2009 )
Ephemeral Installations and the Aesthetics of Nature
  • Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin, OH (February 7, 2012 - June 17, 2012 )
The Body is the Map: Approaches to Land in the Americas after 1960
  • Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin, OH (January 22, 2019 - June 23, 2019 )
Collections
  • Modern & Contemporary