Richard Smith, CBE, 1931–2016, was an English painter and printmaker. His work was in a range of styles but he is known primarily for his creation of early pop-art inspired shaped canvases. His later works were called “kite paintings” and the unprimed painted canvases were supported by aluminum rods and strings, positioned from various points on the wall or ceiling.

Richard Smith was born in Letchworth, Hertfordshire. He studied at St Albans School of Art and after national service with the Royal Air Force in Hong Kong he continued his post-graduate studies at the Royal College of Art in London from 1954 to 1957. He was awarded a Harkness Fellowship in 1959 and travelled to America spending two years there painting. His first one-man show was at the Green Gallery in 1961. In 1970 he represented Britain at the Venice Biennale and in 1975 had a retrospective exhibition of his work at the Tate Gallery in London. He won the Grand Prize at the Sao Paolo Bienal in 1968, and the prize money enabled him to buy a house in the countryside of Wiltshire. He resettled permanently in New York in 1978. His final years were spent with his family in Patchogue, New York.

The Richard Smith Foundation is now being formed and this slide show presentation of his work and family snapshots was created  to show at the recent memorial to Richard Smith held at the Tate Britain in July 2016. 

The Richard Smith Foundation is dedicated to the research and collection of the artist’s work in order to create a catalog raisonée and to use this information to create and publish an appreciation and overview of his contribution to contemporary art.