This retrospective of British artist Richard Smith's "kite" paintings produced from 1972 through 1977grew out of a show at MIT's Hayden Gallery that was the first American exhibit of these works as a group. In her introduction, Marjory Supovitz describes this body of work as follows:"...Cutaneous surfaces, hung individually or overlapped serially on the wall, or strung out and suspended from above. In these pieces, visible support mechanisms, such as aluminum rods or tubes, become a crucial part of the paintings' imagery. Threads, string, ropes or tapes which articulate the thinly painted canvas ground also act as equivalents for brushstrokes and line drawing, and often are accompanied by painted bands or squares."