Robert Smithson was an American artist born in 1938 who is famous for his land art and use of photography in sculpture. He studied art in New York and helped establish land art as a new genre. His most famous work is Spiral Jetty, created in 1970 which is a 1,500 foot long spiral shape extending into the Great Salt Lake in Utah made of mud, crystals, and basalt rocks. Smithson also created Broken Circle/Spiral Hill in 1971 which featured a spiral shape and broken circle shape made of sand and water in the Netherlands. Even after his early death in 1973, Smithson remains highly influential for his original contributions to conceptual art centered around nature and landscape.