About Ray Smith

  • Biography from the Archives of askART

    Ray Smith biographical photo
    Painter and sculptor Ray Smith was born in Brownsville, Texas, in 1959, on lands that his family had settled in the early 19th Century when it was still part of Mexico. He grew up in central Mexico. He studied fresco painting with traditional craftsmen in Mexico, attended art academies in Mexico and the United States, and settled in Mexico City. Since 1985, he has divided his time between New York and Cuernavaca, Mexico.

    Smith's work is related to surrealism in his unreal juxtaposition of objects that may or may not be painted realistically. The artist sometimes uses dogs and animals as surrogates, shamans, or symbols of a more primal nature lurking beneath the surface. They are an "entity of the human figure," says Smith. "They are beasts, but they are directly attached to a blueprint of our own existence." Painted lightbulbs emerge from the heads of seagulls; a human-sized frog is superimposed on a naked woman, while smaller frogs of various sizes sit on parts of her body.

    Considered both an American and Latin American artist, Smith's work has been widely exhibited both sides of the border in the United States, Mexico and South America, as well as in Japan and Europe.

    His first one-man show, of acrylic paintings, was held at the Galería del Instituto Mexicano Norteamericano de Relaciones Culturales in Mexico City in 1978, when Smith was less than twenty years old. He exhibited in the 1989 Biennial Exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City; the First Triennial of Drawings at the Joan Miro Foundation in Barcelona, Spain; and "Latin American Artists of the 20th Century," an exhibition that traveled from Seville, Spain to the Musee National d'Art Moderne at the Pompidou Center in Paris, France; the Kunsthalle Cologne, Germany; and the Museum of Modern Art, New York City. During the last two decades, Smith has had 50 one-man exhibitions.

    Smith's paintings are in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art; Brooklyn Museum of Art; and Metropolitan Museum of Art, all in New York City; High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Georgia; Houston Museum of Contemporary Art, Texas; Miami Art Museum, Florida; Wurth Museum, Kunzelman, Germany; Centro Cultural de Arte Contemporaneo, Mexico City; and Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, Spain.

    A list of some of Ray Smith's one-man shows includes:

    2002
    Catahoula Cur, Babilonia Wilner Foundation, CA, USA
    2000
    Ray Smith, Carrie Secrist Gallery, Chicago
    Roebling Hall Gallery, Brooklyn, New York, USA
    Manuel Ojeda Gallery, Las Palmas, Gran Canarias, Spain
    Aquarellen, Galerie Rob Jurka, Amsterdam, Holland
    1999
    Time and Again. Pinturas y trabajos recientes de los 80's, Galeria Ramis Barquet, New York, USA
    Cosmetologia Cosmica, Galería OMR, Mexico City
    Argonutica, Galeria Joan Prats, Barcelona, Spain
    Argonautica, Thimoty Taylor Gallery, London, England
    1998
    Ray Smith: Recent Paintings, Galeria Ramis Barquet, New York, NY, USA
    Ray Smith, Galerie Daniel Templon, Paris, France
    1997
    Galerie Lars Bohman, Stockholm, Sweden
    1996
    ARCO 99, Stand Galeria Ramis Barquet, Madrid, Spain
    The Battle of the Tailors, Mario Diacomo, Boston MA, USA
    1995
    Ray Smith: Portaits of American Writes, Sperone Westwater, New York, NY, USA
    Gallery Lars Bohman, Stockholm, Sweden
    Ray Smith: recent paintings, The Arts Club of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA
    Ray Smith, 1995, Galerie Barbara Faber, Amsterdam, Holland
    1994
    ARCO 94, Stand Galeria Ramis Barquet, Madrid, Spain
    Ruth Bloom Gallery, Santa Monica, CA, USA
    Gian Enzo Sperone, Roma, Italy
    1994-93
    Art at the Edge: Ray Smith, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Georgia, USA
    Encounters 4: Ray Smith, Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, TX, USA
    1993
    Sculptures, Gallery Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris, France
    Ray Smith 93 Obra Reciente, Ex-convento de Santa Teresa la Antigua, Mexico
    1993-92
    Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastrich, Holland
    MARCO, Monterrey, Mexico
    1992
    New Paintings, Galerie Barbara Faber, Amsterdam, Holland
    Sperone Westwater, New York, NY, USA
    1991
    New Paintings, Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris, France
    Sculpture, Sperone Westwater, New York, NY, USA
    Paraiso, Deleites Terrestres, Infierno, permanent installation at Crazy Eights, San Francisco, CA, USA
    Mario Diacono Gallery, Boston, MA, USA
    1990
    Galerie Folker Skulima, Berlin, Germany
    Ray Smith, Galería OMR, Mexico City
    Sperone Westwater, New York, NY, USA
    Ray Smith: Wind Instruments, Editions Julie Sylvester, New York, NY, USA
    Gian Enzo Sperone, Rome, Italy
    New Paintings, Akira Ikeda Gallery, Nagoya, Japan
    1989
    Currents: Ray Smith, The Institute of Contemporay Art, Boston, MA, USA
    New Darwings, Akira Ikeda Gallery, Nagoya, Japan
    Bruno Bischofberger, Zurich, Switzerland
    Galeria de Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico City
    Sperone Westwater, Feria Internacional de Chicago, IL, USA
    New Prints, AC&T Corporation, Tokyo, Japan
    Fernando Alcolea Barcelona, Spain
    Lino Silverstein Gallery, Barcelona, Spain
    Galleri Lars Bohman, Stockholm, Sweden
    Galeria de Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico City
    1988
    Mario Diacomo, Boston, MA, USA
    Sperone Westwater Gallery, New York, NY, USA
    Gian Enzo Sperone, Rome, Italy
    New Paintings, Akira Ikeda Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
    1987
    Recent Paintings, Gagosian Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, USA
    1985
    Ray Smith Yturria: Paintings/Drawings/Sculpture, @Portico, Philadelphia, PA, USA
    1984
    Ray Smith: Drawings, @ Tower, New York, NY, USA

    Source:
    http://www.museum.oas.org/permanent/new_expressions/bios/smith.html
    http://www.findarticles.com/cf_dls/m1248/9_88/65069560/p1/article.jhtml

** If you discover credit omissions or have additional information to add, please let us know at .

Share an image of the Artist: .