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Richard Smith

  • Biography
  • Timeline
  • Selected Exhibitions
  • Works
  • Exhibitions
  • Art Fairs
  • Publications
  • Richard Smith, Silent Fall, 1970 (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    Richard Smith  Drawing Boards I (red / yellow), 1980  Etching on paper  74.9 x 56.5 cms (29 1/2 x 22 1/4 ins)  Edition of 60, Set of 5 Published by Bernard Jacobson Ltd Signed, dated, and numbered (recto) (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    Richard Smith, Maquette for Gift Wrap, 1963 (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    Richard Smith, Silent Fall, 1970
  • Biography
    View works. Richard Smith
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    The English painter and printmaker, Richard Smith studied at the Royal College of Art from 1954 to 1957 and lived in New York through a Harkness Fellowship from 1959 to 1961. When living in New York, Smith produced paintings combining the formal qualities of Abstract Expressionist painters with references to American mass media, including its lush and seductive colours, exploitation of magnification and soft-focus effects, and stimulation of desire and fantasy. Using shaped canvases, Smith often extended his works into three-dimensional space while initially referring to advertising devices to promote products and phenomenologically entice the spectator. Smith gradually minimised his mass media references in favour of more self-contained abstract qualities of shape, support, colour, and surface. Repetition, a key aspect in many of his works, suggests Smith worked in 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.

     

  • Timeline

    1931 Born in Letchworth, Hertfordshire, England

    1954-57 Studies at the Royal College of Art, London

    1959 Awarded the prestigious Harkness Fellowship, which prompted the artist to move to New York, where he would showcase his first solo exhibition

    1963 Returns to England, where he gained acclaim for his shaped canvas artworks that protruded into space three-dimensionally

    1966 Begins developing free-standing installation works known as ‘Kite’ paintings

    1969 Awarded the Grand Prize at the 9th São Paulo Biennial

    1970 Represents Britain at the XXXV Venice Biennale

    1976 Moves back to New York, where he remains until the end of his life

    2016 Dies in New York at the age of 86

  • Selected Exhibitions

    1957 New Trends in British Art, New York Art Foundation, Rome, Italy

    1959 Place: A Collaboration, ICA, London, UK

    1960 Deuxième Biennale de Paris, Musée d’art moderne, Paris, France

    1961-2 The 1961 Pittsburgh International Exhibition of Contemporary Paintings & Sculpture,

    Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh

    1962 Towards Art?, Royal College of Art, London and subsequent Arts Council Tour

    1962 Contemporary Painting, Yale University, New Haven, CT

    1962 Kompas II, Stedelijk Museum, Eindhoven, Holland

    1962-3 British Art Today, San Francisco Museum of Art (travelled to the Dallas Museum of

    Contemporary Art and Santa Barbara Museum of Art)

    1963 Dunn International, Tate Gallery, London, UK

    1963 VII Tokyo Biennial, Tokyo Metropolitan Art Gallery, Tokyo, and subsequent tour of Japan

    1964 Pop Etc., Museum de 20 Jahrhunderts, Vienna, Austria

    1964 Premio Marzotto, Baldagno, Italy, and subsequent European tour

    1964 Nieuwe Realisten, Gemeente Museum, The Hague

    1964 Painting and Sculpture of a Decade, Tate Gallery, London, UK

    1964 The Shaped Canvas, The Soloman R.Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY

    1964 Englische Kunst der Gegenwart, Stadtische Kunstgalerie, Bochum, Germany

    1964 Britische Malerie der Gegenwart, Kunsthalle, Dusseldorf

    1964-5 Neue Realisten & Pop Art, Akademie de Kunste, Berlin

    1965 Biennale des Jeunes, Musée d’art Moderne, Paris

    1965 Pop Art, Nouveau Réalisme, etc., Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, Belgium

    1966 26th Annual Exhibition, by the Society for Contemporary Art, ICA, Chicago, IL

    1966 The Other Tradition, The Institute of Contemporary Art, Pittsburgh

    1966 XXXIII Venice Biennale, Venice, and subsequent tour to Berne, Brussels and Rotterdam

    1966-7 New Shapes of Colour, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, and also Berne, Stuttgart

    1968 European Painters Today, Musée des arts Décoratifs, Paris, France

    1970 Contemporary British Art, Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, JP

    1973 La Peinture Anglais Aujourd’hui, Muée d’art moderne de la ville, Paris, France

    1974 British Painting ‘74, Hayward Gallery, London

    1974 X BIENNALE INTERNATIONALE D'ART, France, Menton, Palais de l’Europe

    1975 Seven Exhibitions 1961-75, Tate Gallery, London, UK

    1976 Arte Inglese Oggi 1960-1976, Palazzo Reale, Milan, Italy

    1977 Recent Work 1972 – 1977, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge (toured the

    United States)

    1986 Forty Years of Modern Art, 1945-1985, Tate Gallery, London, UK

    1987 Pop Art, Royal Academy of Art, London and touring to Cologne and Madrid

    1987 British Art in the 20th Century, Royal Academy of Art, London, UK

    1991 Not Pop, What the Others Were Doing, Bernard Jacobson Gallery, London, UK

    1991-92 Pop Art, Royal Academy of Art, London (travelled to Museum Ludwig, Cologne, and Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid)

    1992 Ready, Steady, Go, Paintings from the Sixties from the Arts Council Collection, Foyer Galleries, Royal Festival Hall, London, UK

    1992-3 Pop Art, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Montreal, Canada

    1993 The Sixties Art Scene in London, Barbican Art Gallery, London, UK

    1999 Art from the '60s - This was Tomorrow, Tate, London, UK

    2007 Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts, London, UK

    2010 Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy of Art, London, UK

    2015 Colour correction: British and American Screen-prints 1967-1975, Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, USA

    2015 Remembering Things Past, Islip Art Museum, New York, NY

    2017 Caro, Denny, Smith, Vaux, Bernard Jacobson Gallery, London, UK

    2018 Spring Show, Bernard Jacobson Gallery, London, UK

    2019 Prints I Published, Bernard Jacobson Gallery, London, UK

    2020 The 70s | Explosion of Colours, Bernard Jacobson Gallery, London, UK

    2022 On Paper: Denny, Hoyland, Smith, Vaux, Bernard Jacobson Gallery, London, UK

    2022 Mixed Show, Bernard Jacobson Gallery, London, UK

    2024 8 Golden Square: Group Show, Bernard Jacobson Gallery, London, UK

    2024 Pools on Paper, Bernard Jacobson Gallery, London, UK

     

    Download CV 

  • Works
    Open a larger version of the following image in a popup: Richard Smith, Horizon IV (Beige, blue, green), 1970

    Richard Smith

    Horizon IV (Beige, blue, green), 1970
    Lithograph
    33 x 71 cms (13 x 28 ins)
    Edition of 75, Set of 6
    Enquire
    %3Cdiv%20class%3D%22artist%22%3ERichard%20Smith%3C/div%3E%3Cdiv%20class%3D%22title_and_year%22%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22title_and_year_title%22%3EHorizon%20IV%20%28Beige%2C%20blue%2C%20green%29%3C/span%3E%2C%20%3Cspan%20class%3D%22title_and_year_year%22%3E1970%3C/span%3E%3C/div%3E%3Cdiv%20class%3D%22medium%22%3ELithograph%3C/div%3E%3Cdiv%20class%3D%22dimensions%22%3E33%20x%2071%20cms%20%2813%20x%2028%20ins%29%3C/div%3E%3Cdiv%20class%3D%22edition_details%22%3EEdition%20of%2075%2C%20Set%20of%206%3C/div%3E
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  • Exhibitions

    • Denny, Hoyland, Smith, Vaux: On Paper
      Exhibitions

      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...
    • Prints I published
      Exhibitions

      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...
    • Prints I wish I had published
      Exhibitions

      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...
    • Some of the artists I have worked for
      Exhibitions

      Some of the artists I have worked for

      10 September - 5 October 2019
      To end the celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the gallery, we are delighted to introduce a selection of works by the artists that helped shaping its success.
    • Caro, Denny, Smith, Vaux
      Exhibitions

      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...
  • Art Fairs

    • Art Basel | Basel
      Events

      Art Basel | Basel

      14 - 17 June 2012
    • Frieze Masters
      Events

      Frieze Masters

      17 - 20 October 2013
    • IFPDA Fine Art Print Fair
      Events

      IFPDA Fine Art Print Fair

      4 - 8 November 2015
    • London Original Print Fair
      Events

      London Original Print Fair

      5 - 8 May 2016
      View Artsy Fair Booth
    • Draw Art Fair London
      Events

      Draw Art Fair London

      17 - 19 May 2019
      View Artsy Fair Booth
    • IFPDA Print Fair
      Events

      IFPDA Print Fair

      27 - 30 October 2022
      Bernard Jacobson Gallery is pleased to participate in the 2022 edition of the IFPDA Print Fair at the Javits Center in New York. The gallery will present a selection of...
  • Publications

    • Some of the artists I have worked for
      Publications

      Some of the artists I have worked for

      Published on occasion of the homonymous exhibition held at Bernard Jacobson Gallery, London, 10 September - 5 October 2019
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