 |
|
Richard Smith (b. 1931)
Producing paintings that combined the formal qualities of the work of American abstract painters, such as Mark Rothko and Sam Francis, with references to American commercial culture, with its lush seductive colours, exploitation of magnification and soft-focus effects and, generally, its stimulation of desire and fantasy. The titles of these works, such as Penny (1960; Belfast, Ulster Mus.) and Chase Manhattan (1971; Washington, DC, Hirshhorn), openly alluded to the sources of the often submerged or abstracted imagery. Smith's interest in such mass-media sources and in the commercial photography of Irving Penn, Bert Stern (b 1929) and Ben Somoroff for magazines such as McCalls, Vogue and Harper's Bazaar brought him briefly within the orbit of Pop art. His ambition to make painting share a common sensibility with media outside conventional fine art, such as film and photography, began to wane by 1968 because of what he felt to be their preoccupation with the recent past.Education
1959-61: Lived in New York on a Harkness Fellowship
1954-57: Studied at Royal College of Art, LondonBiographical Notes
Details from: The Grove Dictionary of Art.Works by Richard Smith
< back
|
|
