{{Short description|English-born Canadian artist (1919–2020)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}} {{Infobox artist |birth_name=Gordon Appelbe Smith |birth_place=East Brighton, England |birth_date={{Birth date|1919|6|18}} |spouse = Marion Fleming (m. 1941) |death_date={{Death date and age|2020|1|18|1919|6|18}} | death_place=West Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada |known_for=Painter, printmaker, sculptor and teacher |awards= Order of Canada, Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts, Audain Prize for Lifetime Achievement in the Visual Arts }} '''Gordon Appelbe Smith''' {{post-nominals|country=CAN|CM|RCA|size=100%}} (June 18, 1919 – January 18, 2020) was an English-born Canadian artist, known for expanding the dialogue between abstraction and representation, working with mediums such as painting, printmaking, and sculpting. Smith taught with contemporaries Bruno Bobak, B.C. Binning and Jack Shadbolt at the Vancouver School of Art (now Emily Carr University of Art and Design) for 10 years, then for 26 years at the University of British Columbia before retiring in 1982 to paint full-time.

==Early life and education== He was born Gordon Appelbe Smith in East Brighton, England.<ref name="VanSun100yrs">{{Cite web|url = https://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/the-most-loved-artist-in-b-c-gordon-smith-turns-100|title = The most loved artist in B.C., Gordon Smith, turns 100 &#124; Vancouver Sun|date = 2019-06-17|access-date = 2019-12-23|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20190622081648/https://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/the-most-loved-artist-in-b-c-gordon-smith-turns-100|archive-date = 2019-06-22|url-status = live}}</ref><ref name="ActOfPainting">{{Cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OJrqAAAAMAAJ |title = Gordon Smith: The act of painting|isbn = 9781550545852|last1 = Thom|first1 = Ian M.|last2 = Smith|first2 = Gordon A.|last3 = Hunter|first3 = Andrew|year = 1997}}</ref> His father, William George Smith, was an amateur watercolourist. He took Gordon and his brother Donald on frequent visits to the National Gallery, London and to the Tate. He attended the Harrow County School for Boys where Gordon received four years of formal art training and several prizes for his art.<ref name="ActOfPainting"/> In 1933, Smith's parents separated. His mother Daisy Smith took the boys to live in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.<ref name="ActOfPainting"/>

In 1935, he studied at the Vancouver Normal School and Vancouver School of Art, then, from 1937 to 1940, he studied art at the Winnipeg School of Art.<ref>{{Cite web | url=http://uvac.uvic.ca/gallery/blog/gordon-smith-paintings-prints-and-posters-1950-to-1978/ | title=Gordon Smith: Paintings, Prints and Posters, 1950 to 1978 &#124; University of Victoria Legacy Art Galleries | access-date=2019-12-23 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181022210857/http://uvac.uvic.ca/gallery/blog/gordon-smith-paintings-prints-and-posters-1950-to-1978/ | archive-date=2018-10-22 | url-status=live }}</ref> In 1939, during his third year of art school, Smith enrolled in the Royal Winnipeg Rifles.<ref name="fonds"/> Before going overseas for war service, he took a vacation in Vancouver where he met and married Marion Fleming.<ref name="VanSun100yrs"/> In 1942, he joined the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry. He was first a lieutenant, then a Platoon Commander and then the Intelligence Officer.<ref name="fonds"/> In 1943, he was badly injured while landing at the beach in Leon Forte, Sicily.<ref name="VanSun100yrs"/><ref name="fonds">{{Cite web | url=https://archives.ppcli.com/gordon-smith-fonds | title=Gordon A. Smith fonds - PPCLI}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web | url=https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/canadian-artist-s-time-in-military-subject-of-new-exhibit-at-vancouver-art-gallery-1.4396200 | title=Canadian artist's time in military subject of new exhibit at Vancouver Art Gallery &#124; CBC News | access-date=2019-12-23 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190117080604/https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/canadian-artist-s-time-in-military-subject-of-new-exhibit-at-vancouver-art-gallery-1.4396200 | archive-date=2019-01-17 | url-status=live }}</ref>

==Art career== In 1944, Smith returned to Vancouver where the Vancouver Art Gallery had a solo show for the work he produced overseas.<ref name="VanSun100yrs"/> He also attended the Vancouver School of Art in the same year to complete the fourth year of his art degree.<ref name="malkin">{{cite web |last1=Malkin |first1=Peter |title=Goron Applebe Smith |url=https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/gordon-appelbe-smith |website=www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/e |publisher=Canadian Encyclopedia, 2008 |access-date=2021-04-15}}</ref> From 1945 to 1954, Smith taught at the Vancouver School of Art.<ref name="Modern Life">{{Cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SqhAKDb7ODMC&q=gordon+a+smith+winnipeg+school+of+art&pg=PA172 |title = A Modern Life: Art and Design in British Columbia, 1945-1960|isbn = 9781551521718|year = 2004| last1=Gallery | first1=Vancouver Art }}</ref> In 1947, he had his second solo show at the Vancouver Art Gallery.<ref name="Modern Life"/> In 1951, he studied at the California School of Fine Arts with Elmer Bischoff and learned of American artists such as Clyfford Still, Richard Diebenkorn and others. In 1957, he went to Harvard to study and met Walter Gropius, the architect who founded the Bauhaus School.<ref name="malkin" /> In the mid-to-late fifties, he painted abstractions with thick black-line grids and structures, but his work constantly evolved later.

In 1960, he was chosen to represent Canada at the São Paulo Biennial.<ref name="ActOfPainting"/> In 1965, at the request of Arthur Erickson, Smith designed two murals for Erickson's new Simon Fraser University campus building. The work, titled ''Mosaic Mural'', is permanently installed along the sides of the west academic quadrangle.<ref>{{Cite web | url=https://collections.burnabyartgallery.ca/ListDetail?q=SFU&p=15&ps=1 |title = Mosaic Mural &#124; Art Gallery Collections}}</ref> For EXPO '70 in Osaka, Japan, he was commissioned by Erickson to create an artwork for the Canadian Pavilion.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.arthurerickson.com/cultural-buildings/expo-70-canadian-pavilion/13/caption|title = Arthur Erickson &#124; expo-70-canadian-pavilion &#124; 13}}</ref> After this project and trips to Egypt, the U.S. and Europe, Smith developed his ''Seawall'' series with a composition composed of horizontal bands and used it for ocean vistas.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Thom |first1=Ian M. |last2=Hunter|first2=Andrew|title=Gordon Smith: The Act of Painting |url=https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1849600.Gordon_Smith |website=www.goodreads.com|publisher=Vancouver Art Gallery, 1997, p. 41 |access-date=26 May 2022}}</ref>

In 1956, Smith was invited to train teachers in the new faculty of education at UBC.<ref>{{Cite web | url=https://canadianart.ca/features/gordon-smith-knows-painting/ | title=The Sage: Gordon Smith Knows Painting}}</ref> He taught for 26 years there until retiring in 1982, then formed the foundation Artists for Kids Trust, to benefit children’s art education.

==Awards and honours==

In 1995, Smith won the "Structure with Red Sun Award". He was named a member of the Order of Canada in 1996. He was an Education Professor Emeritus at the University of British Columbia (UBC). In 2007, he received the Audain Prize for Lifetime Achievement in the Visual Arts. In March 2009, at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, he was named a laureate and presented with the Governor General's Award in the Visual and Media Arts.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.straight.com/article-209250/west-vancouver-artist-gordon-smith-receives-top-governor-general-nod |title=West Vancouver artist Gordon Smith receives top Governor General nod |access-date=2017-08-29 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121017181424/http://www.straight.com/article-209250/west-vancouver-artist-gordon-smith-receives-top-governor-general-nod |archive-date=2012-10-17 |url-status=live |date=2009-03-24 }}</ref> He was made a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts<ref name=RCA1880>{{cite web|title=Members since 1880 |url=http://www.rca-arc.ca/en/about_members/since1880.asp |publisher=Royal Canadian Academy of Arts |accessdate=11 September 2013 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20110526215339/http://www.rca-arc.ca/en/about_members/since1880.asp |archivedate=26 May 2011 }}</ref>

==Collections==

Smith's works are included in the collections of the following museums: *Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://collections.mnbaq.org/fr/artiste/600001828|title=Gordon Smitm, Collection MNBAQ|access-date=2020-06-24}}</ref> *National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.gallery.ca/collection/artist/gordon-smith |title=Gordon Smith |access-date=2019-12-23 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190330093612/https://www.gallery.ca/collection/artist/gordon-smith |archive-date=2019-03-30 |url-status=live }}</ref> *the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C. *Victoria and Albert Museum in London, England *Vancouver Art Gallery

In 2009 his massive wall sculpture ''Beach Tangle''<ref>{{Cite web | url=http://westvancouver.ca/Level3.aspx?id=24558 | title=Public Art in West Vancouver| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110706212846/http://westvancouver.ca/Level3.aspx?id=24558| archive-date=2011-07-06}}</ref> was installed in the lobby of the West Vancouver Community Centre, one of the venues for celebration during the 2010 Winter Olympic Games.

==Personal life== In 1953, Gordon and Marion Smith moved to the North Shore of Vancouver into their first commissioned house from the architect Arthur Erickson.<ref>{{Cite web | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ucUDAAAAMBAJ&q=gordon+a+smith+erickson+house+1953&pg=PA86 |title = Dwell|date = October 2003}}</ref> The need for a larger studio space prompted them to move to a second new house in West Vancouver, commissioned by friend Erickson in 1966.<ref>{{Cite web | url=http://architectuul.com/architecture/gordon-smith-house | title=Gordon Smith House | access-date=2019-12-23 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190518001047/http://architectuul.com/architecture/gordon-smith-house | archive-date=2019-05-18 | url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web | url=https://thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/smith-house | title=Smith House &#124; the Canadian Encyclopedia | access-date=2019-12-23 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190609203313/https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/smith-house | archive-date=2019-06-09 | url-status=live }}</ref> After Marion's death in 2009, Smith continued to live and work in their home. He died in Vancouver on January 18, 2020, at the age of 100.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/art-and-architecture/article-gordon-smith-beloved-and-influential-canadian-artist-dies-at-100/|title=Gordon Smith, beloved and influential Canadian artist, dies at 100|access-date=2020-01-23}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/beloved-b-c-artist-gordon-smith-dies-at-home-in-west-vancouver|title=Beloved B.C. artist Gordon Smith dies at age 100 in West Vancouver|website=Vancouver Sun|first=Kevin|last=Griffin|date=2020-01-20|language=en|access-date=2020-01-23}}</ref>

==References== {{Reflist}}

==Further reading == *{{cite book |last1=Thom |first1=Ian M. |last2=Hunter|first2=Andrew|title=The Act of Painting |date=1997 |publisher=Douglas & McIntyre|location=Vancouver|url=http://library.gallery.ca/search~S1?/asmith%2C+gordon/asmith+gordon/1%2C3%2C20%2CB/frameset&FF=asmith+gordon+1919+2020&15%2C%2C18 |access-date=17 April 2022}}

==External links== *[https://thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/gordon-appelbe-smith The Canadian Encyclopedia ] *[http://www.smithfoundation.ca/ The Smith Foundation] *[https://web.archive.org/web/20110706212846/http://westvancouver.ca/Level3.aspx?id=24558 Public Art in West Vancouver]

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Smith, Gordon A.}} Category:20th-century Canadian painters Category:Canadian male painters Category:21st-century Canadian painters Category:20th-century Canadian printmakers Category:20th-century Canadian sculptors Category:Canadian male sculptors Category:Artists from British Columbia Category:People from West Vancouver Category:1919 births Category:2020 deaths Category:Members of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts Category:Members of the Order of Canada Category:Canadian men centenarians Category:Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts winners Category:English emigrants to Canada Category:Canadian Army personnel of World War II Category:Military personnel from Brighton Category:Royal Winnipeg Rifles soldiers Category:Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry officers Category:20th-century Canadian male artists Category:21st-century Canadian male artists Category:Canadian collage artists