Tau / Tony Smith

Tau, designed by Tony Smith in 1961-1962, is representative of his bold geometric work from the 1960s. The sculptor often used small cardboard tetrahedrons to create models for his pieces, a technique he began to explore while bedridden during a childhood illness. He designed Tau to have an organic, architectural presence, with shapes, angles, and even color that change depending on the time of day and the viewer's position. Smith, a South Orange native born in 1912, was one of the most influential sculptors of the 20th century. He began his career as a painter, then trained as an architectural designer under Frank Lloyd Wright. During the 1940s and 50s he continued to paint alongside Abstract Expressionists including Jackson Pollock, Barnett Newman, and Mark Rothko. In the late 1950s he turned to sculpture, which brought him international fame. He appeared on the cover of TIME magazine and was the subject of a major retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1998. Born into a third-generation South Orange family, he and his wife Jane lived in the family home on Stanley Road, where they raised daughters Kiki, Seton, and Beatrice, and where he lived and worked, creating plywood mock-ups of his sculptures in the backyard, until his death in 1980.

South Orange, New Jersey · United States