Richard Smith

Richard Smith was an English painter and printmaker. He studied at the Royal College of Art from 1954 to 1957 and from 1959 to 1961 lived in New York through a Harkness Fellowship. During his time in New York, Smith produced paintings that combined the formal qualities of the work of American abstract painters with references to American commercial culture - including its lush and seductive colours, its exploitation of magnification and soft-focus effects, and its stimulation of desire and fantasy. Smith's use of shaped canvases sometimes physically extended into space and initially referred to devices used in advertising to promote products and overpower and entice the spectator. Gradually, such direct references were minimised in favour of the largely self-contained abstract qualities of shape, support, colour, and surface. Repetition suggests some response to Minimalism, although he resisted the call to new materials and compared his cutting and folding of canvas to large-scale origami. Bulky constructions such as these were followed from 1972 by paintings using components from tent manufacturing. These paintings focused on the physical constitution of painting as a stretched and suspended surface and played with relationships of colour and shape, drawing and structure. After resettling in New York in 1976, Smith's work evolved into larger-scale architectural decoration, often in response to commissions.

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Denny, Hoyland, Smith, Vaux: On Paper

2 February - 5 March 2022

Bernard Jacobson Gallery presents Denny, Hoyland, Smith, Vaux: On Paper, an exhibition of works by Modern British icons Robyn Denny, John Hoyland, Richard Smith and Marc Vaux. Departing from the 1960s, a time when artists sought to shun the confines of British semi-abstract painterly tradition of London and the St. Ives School, the exhibition explores the dialogue between each of these four artists’ distinctive use of the medium as they champion new advances in abstract painting.

Prints I published

12 February - 9 March 2019

In 1969 Bernard Jacobson began his career as an art dealer, selling and publishing prints by important contemporary artists from a small fourth-floor gallery in London’s Mayfair. For a gallery founded on printmaking and which continues to stage major print shows by artists including Matisse and Motherwell, what better way could there be to celebrate this half century than a two-part exhibition devoted to printmaking?

Prints I wish I had published

11 January - 9 February 2019

In 1969 Bernard Jacobson opened his first London gallery – a fourth-floor walk-up on Mount Street, Mayfair, dealing in prints by international stars, including Andy Warhol and Claes Oldenburg, as well as publishing prints by leading British artists including Malcolm Morley and Robyn Denny. Printmaking fit the radical, pop sensibility of the time, and Jacobson was part of that heady explosion of interest in the medium. As the gallery approaches its half century in 2019, it is fitting that this landmark year opens with an ambitious two-part exhibition exploring Jacobson's personal and abiding love of prints and some of the remarkable works published by the gallery during an eventful 50 years in the business.

Caro, Denny, Smith, Vaux

2 February - 4 March 2017

Bernard Jacobson Gallery is delighted to present its upcoming exhibition Caro, Denny, Smith, Vaux, including works by gallery artists Anthony Caro, Robyn Denny, Richard Smith, and Marc Vaux. The show will include paintings and sculptures from the 1960s and 1970s, as well as from more recent years.