La Cienega Area

Thick, liquid line becomes figure, becomes landscape or sweeping abstract calligraphy in a delightful collection of works on paper from the ‘50s by sculptor David Smith. A welder turned painter then sculptor, Smith never lost his connections to painting. These drawings pay tribute to his running love affair with the figure, quasi-geometric form and fanciful, spontaneous line. Strongly rooted in Cubist constructions and divisions of space, they are strong, intellectually mature images that ripen into poetry through a kind of Kandinsky-esque expression of harmony.

In these spare and elegant brush drawings, bodies are conjured up with a single pulsing line. The marks evolve from hollow to solid, negative to positive as Smith sketches with ink, spray paint and tempera. At one point the figures are dark, dancing silhouettes, at another they are disconnected impressions of totemic body parts. Glimpses here and there hint at the concurrent evolution of Smith’s sculptural style from fanciful line to more solid geometric forms. But it is the vibrancy of the gesture that informs the drawings. In a way it helps explain an artist who once described himself as a sculptor who painted his images. (Margo Leavin Gallery, 812 N. Robertson Blvd., to Feb. 10.)