(b Sheffield, 18 June 1928). English painter. He trained at Sheffield College of Art (1944-6), St Martin's School of Art, London (1948-50), and the Royal College of Art, London (1950-53). His first one-man exhibition was in 1953 at the Beaux-Arts Gallery, London, identified by a critic of The Times 'as a stronghold for today's inventive realism'. His paintings of kitchens and children of 1952-3 (e.g. Mother Bathing Child, 1953; London, Tate) depicted the crowded house in Kensington that Smith's family shared with Derrick Greaves (b 1927) and the sculptor George Fullard (1923-73). It was the work of this period that first carried him to fame, as well as giving him the label of Kitchen-sink painter (see KITCHEN SINK SCHOOL), bestowed upon him by the critic David Sylvester in 1954; in 1956 he was grouped with John Bratby, Edward Middleditch (b 1923) and Greaves in the British Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, although in later years he rejected both the label and group identity. He also painted snowscapes, seascapes and firework displays. For a short period he used still-life objects as metaphors, as in Creation and Crucifixion (1956; Liverpool, Walker A.G.). However, he subsequently focused on the transfiguration of still-life objects into tactile patterns of light and dark.
See the Abbreviations for further details.
