Jack Smith (18 June 1928 – 11 June 2011) was a British realist and, later, abstract artist.^[2]

Jack Smith was born in 1928 in Sheffield, Yorkshire.

Smith studied at Sheffield College of Art (1944–1946), Saint Martin's School of Art (1948–1950) and the Royal College of Art (1950–1953).^[3] At the RCA, Smith studied under John Minton, Ruskin Spear and Carel Weight.^[4]

During the 1950s, Smith's early work was in a neo-realist style known as "The Kitchen Sink School" featuring domestic subjects.

In the 1960s, Smith abandoned realism and adopted a brightly coloured, abstract style comparable to those of Wassily Kandinsky and Piet Mondrian incorporating Constructivism and Biomorphism with elements of hieroglyphic and musical notation.^[5] Smith continued to develop and work in this style and did not return to realism.

• First prize at the first John Moores Liverpool Exhibition (1956) ^[6]
• Shown at Venice Biennale (1956)
• Retrospective at the Whitechapel Art Gallery (1959)^[7]
• National Prize at Guggenheim International Awards
• Touring Retrospective organised by Sunderland Arts Centre (1977)
• 80th Birthday Retrospective at the Flowers East gallery (2008)^[3]
• The National Portrait Gallery, London held an exhibition of his work, 'Jack Smith: Abstract Portraits' (2015) ^[8] and holds several portraits of him in its collection.^[9]

• 56 artworks by or after Jack Smith at the Art UK site
• Works in the Tate collection
• 80th Birthday Retrospective
• Obituary of Jack Smith, The Daily Telegraph, 20 June, 2011

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