Richard Smith (1931-2016) was among the most original painters of his generation.  Highly influential in both the British and American art scenes of the 1960s he was not only central to the development of Pop Art, of which he was a pioneer, but also instrumental in pushing abstract painting in a new direction. This exhibition brings together nine of his early paintings from the formative period of 1959 until 1963.

 

Whilst studying as a postgraduate in the painting school at the Royal College of Art in London (1954-57) Smith made expansive paintings using vigorous, sloping brushwork heavily influenced by the work of the Abstract Expressionists and Colour Field painters, whose work he had seen at two major exhibitions at the Tate Gallery in the 50s. It was not until 1959 that Smith made his first trip to New York, having been awarded the prestigious Harkness Fellowship, and he spent the next two years there immersing himself in life, culture, and most importantly, the contemporary art scene.

 

Although deeply inspired by American painting and visual culture, particularly its scale and daring subject matter, Smith’s art continued to challenge the values at the very heart of it. The flourishing backdrop of New York provided a wealth of ideas for a new energy and sensibility in his work. The huge billboards promoting consumer products, the illuminated advertising signs above Times Square, the logos of corporations and radio stations, the fanfare of a theatrical spotlight, all appear in his work in various ways – their designs, the form and colour, enlarged, cropped and tweaked to give subtle clues as to their origins. Early paintings such as Nassau (1962), Packet of Ten (1962) and Tip Top (1963) convey the wonder and excitement that Smith first felt in this new urban environment. But he never forgot his European roots and his distinctive painterly brushwork, perhaps most keenly felt in works such as Place 1 (1959) always set him apart from his American contemporaries.

 

By 1961 Smith’s work had gained him widespread critical acclaim and he was offered his first solo exhibition at the cutting-edge Green Gallery in Manhattan where he would continue to show until he returned to London in 1963. Although he spent much of his career straddling stylistic classification, he remained an artist of sublime painterliness with a gift for conveying emotion and visual sensation through form and colour.

 

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