signed on stretcher verso
“My feelings and themes are largely derived from nature, the sea, rocks, trees; the things I live with…Painting should be a re-creation of an experience rather than an illustration of an experience” – Gordon Smith
Gordon Appelbe Smith represented Canada at the Sao Paulo Biennial in 1960 – his first international exposure. Smith also received a Canada Council scholarship in 1960, allowing him to travel to New York, Europe and England. His first commercial show was held in Vancouver in 1961 at the New Design Gallery.
In the mid-1960s Gordon Smith was painting works influenced by Abstract Expressionism when, around 1965, looking for a new direction, he began to explore hard-edge abstraction. The painting offered here, although untitled, is an excellent example of this period. In the mid-1960s interest in the geometric was circulating both internationally and in the Vancouver modernist community, and can be further seen in the paintings of his contemporary associates: Roy Kiyooka, Michael Morris and Gary Lee-Nova.
One of Canada’s most important painters, Smith continues to live and paint in Vancouver, producing abstracted landscapes. Smith’s contribution to the Canadian modernist movement in art is reflected by his Arthur Erickson designed home. Arthur Erickson and Smith participated actively in postwar Vancouver’s modernist art scene, alongside celebrated artists such as Jack Shadbolt and B.C. Binning. Like Vancouver itself, Smith’s art has been an evolving search for balance – between the constructed modern and of the embrace of the nature – giving us insight into both the act of painting, and the essence of the West Coast.
He has been honoured with the Order of Canada, the Order of British Columbia and the Governor General’s Award for Visual Art.
