Richard Smith: 1970–1983

Explore this online Presentation highlighting a group of works by pioneering British artist Richard Smith (1931-2016). The Presentation reflects Smith’s testing of the limits of painting through a number of distinct bodies of work; from the shaped canvases of the late 60s and 70s, through to the kite works, and the reversion back to flat canvas in the 80s.

In the late 50s, Smith travelled to America on the Harkness Fellowship and was inspired by his American colleagues and his time there. Yet his work took on a more restrained output, with less obvious emotional content. His imagery tended to be much more concrete, and always straddled a number of motifs; ‘Neither pop nor minimal, neither colour-field abstraction, nor literal three-dimensional object’1. He has always been Richard Smith – in between these parameters.

He became known in the 60s and 70s for his odd-shaped, wall-hanging canvases, which drew heavily on high-end advertising of the time. They are Pop inasmuch they draw source from ephemera of the world, but Smith’s interest was more luxury and less demotic. And as such, the imagery which results is less pictorial than his Pop colleagues; more painterly.

Mandarin, 1970

acrylic on canvas

169 x 303 cm / 67 x 120 in

Further information on request

This type of painting led Smith to his Kite works which are concerned with qualities of painting itself as much as the space around them. In this Presentation, we show the notable Cartouche 1-4 from 1979, one of fifteen original paper pulp works, in replicating the same idea as the kite paintings. Smith’s aim with these was to reverse the relationship between the canvas and its support; strings were used in order for the work to suspend from the wall or ceiling.

In 1978, following a litany of museum exhibitions, Smith moved back to New York permanently and lived there for the rest of his life. His work again took on a new direction in the 80s, as he reverted to experimenting with flat canvas, not seen as much in his oeuvre since the early 60s. Our Presentation includes a number of works from this important period, including Centrefold II, 1981, and About to Perform, 1982, which are typical of his flat-canvas works in the 80s; dispersed abstract shapes - in the shape of some of his shaped canvases – lay flat on painterly backgrounds, exploring tensions between different marks and colours. It seems at this point he was back to focusing on the medium and less the physical space around the work itself. This, still, was an exploration into the confines of painting; the all-encompassing preoccupation of his career, and a worthwhile discussion to be having now.

Smith is regarded as one of the most accomplished artists of his generation, if quietly. Defying easy art-historical categorisation, in the period we highlight Smith constantly tested the limits of painting whilst remaining very much a painter.

“In the end, it’s all about touch […]. In Richard’s case, I’m always taken with the resonance and delicate colour that flow, emanate, so naturally from his touch, from his brushstrokes so casually and convincingly delineating shapes in the surrounding space. Night and day, I love Richard’s painting. It always seems to be within my reach, available to my touch, and marking my consciousness - to me, what painting is.”

Frank Stella