Kiki Smith

(Nuremberg, Germany, 1954 - )

American, American, born Germany

The daughter of American minimalist sculptor Tony Smith, Kiki was born in Germany and grew up in New Jersey. As a child, her experience helping her father make cardboard models for his geometric sculptures provided early artistic training. Best known for her sculpture, Smith is also a highly regarded printmaker. Often considered a feminist artist, her work touches on a wide range of issues surrounding the human condition. Life, death, and resurrection are important themes in her sculptures in which she often portrays the female body as a receptacle for knowledge and storytelling. In the 1980s, Smith created objects and drawings based on internal organs, cellular forms and the human nervous system. More recently, she has been inspired by images of women and animals in folklore, mythology and fairy tales. Smith received the Skowhegan Medal for Sculpture in 2000, the Athena Award for Excellence in Printmaking in 2005 and the 50th Edward MacDowell Medal in 2009. In 2005, she was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Also in 2005, the Walker Art Center organized a traveling retrospective of her work. She has participated in three Whitney Biennials, and her work is in included in such museum collections as the Museum of Modern Art, NY; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, NY, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY.

New York, New York

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