The title Leda refers to the Greco-Roman myth about a god who takes the
form of a swan and then seduces a woman. Here, David Smith offers a witty
interpretation of the unlikely act of lovemaking between a bird and a
woman.

Though Smith was not the first sculptor to use steel, no other artist has
devoted his career to the medium with such brilliance and mastery. He learned
the technique of welding steel from working in a car factory, and he applied this
skill to the art of sculpture, forging his first steel work in 1933. Steel
offered unique qualities for Smith, as he explained:  "What it can do in arriving at form
economically, no other material can do. The metal itself possesses little art
history. What associations it possesses are of this century: power,
structure, movement, progress, suspension, destruction,
brutality.

Leda is one of Smith’s more poetic early steel constructions. The image of
the swan is suggested by the graceful arcing neck and wing of the piece,
while the theme of rape is conveyed by the diagonal thrust of one element
piercing another. Myths and historical associations remained of central importance
to Smith throughout his career, and many of his later works incorporate a
balance between subject matter and radical abstraction.