Richard Smith

Richard Smith (1931–2016, UK) was a British painter associated with the transition between Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art in the late 1950s and 1960s. Working between London and New York, Smith developed a practice that engaged with the visual language of commercial culture — packaging, advertising, cinema — while maintaining a commitment to the materiality and shape of painting itself. His canvases frequently extended beyond the rectangle into shaped, three-dimensional forms, treating the support as an object in its own right.

Smith represented Britain at the 1966 Venice Biennale and won the Grand Prize at the 1967 São Paulo Biennial, placing him at the centre of the international exhibition circuit during one of the most contested decades in post-war art. His work was shown at Kasmin Gallery, London, and Green Gallery, New York, and is held in major public collections including Tate and MoMA.

Items in this section include exhibition catalogues, periodicals, and printed matter in which Smith’s work appears as cover image, subject, or reproduced work.

  • Cover of Art and Artists, Vol. II, No. 8, November 1967, London: Hansom Books. Offset lithograph, approx. 27.5 × 21 cm. White ground with large modernist masthead 'art and artists november 1967 6s $1.50' in black. Cover image specially designed by Richard Smith: two tall yellow rectangular forms divided by a central vertical black line and a horizontal black line, on white ground. Contents listed upper right: Calder's Fables, Beardsley's Erotica, John Moores Liverpool, Frank Brangwyn. Creasing and handling Interior spread of Art and Artists, Vol. II, No. 8, November 1967, pp. 12–13. Feature 'Calder's Fables'. Left page: two framed line drawings by Alexander Calder — upper, A Fox and Grapes, fox beneath vine with grapes; lower, A Flea and a Man, nude male figure with flea. Introductory text below: 'Calder's Fables'. Right page: two further framed Calder line drawings with fable texts in period typography. Clean white pages, light age toning.

    RICHARD SMITH — Art and Artists, Vol. II, No. 8, November 1967

    RICHARD SMITH — Art and Artists, Vol. II, No. 8, November 1967