Gordon Smith
(1919–)
(–2020)
Gordon Smith
1919–2020
Gordon Appelbe Smith (1919–2020) was a Canadian artist, known for bridging abstraction and representation, working in the mediums of painting, printmaking and sculpting. In 1996, he was named a member of the Order of Canada.
Smith was born in East Brighton, and in 1933, immigrated to Winnipeg, Canada. From 1937 to 1940, he studied at the Winnipeg School of Art. During his third year of school, he enrolled in the Royal Winnipeg Rifles. Smith served in the war and returned in 1944. He met his wife Marion Fleming on a trip to Vancouver before going overseas in 1941 and they remained married for seventy years.
Starting from 1945, Smith worked at the Vancouver School of Art until 1954, where he taught with artists Jack Shadbolt, Bruno Bobak, BC Binning. He also taught at the University of British Columbia for twenty-six years before retiring in 1982 to paint full-time.
Smith’s painting has expanded the dialogue between abstraction and representation, and he began creating more experimental works as his career progressed. By 1960, Smith was selected to represent Canada at the São Paulo Biennial. He was also commissioned to make a work for the Expo ‘70 in Osaka Japan in collaboration with Arthur Erickson. Smith has had two major retrospectives at the Vancouver Art Gallery and over twenty-five solo exhibitions at Equinox Gallery. Additionally, he has work in the collections of many major museums such as the National Gallery of Canada and the Smithsonian Institute.