David Smith

David Smith 1920-1998. Painter, printmaker and teacher, born in Lowestoft, Suffolk, where he attended Lowestoft and Norwich Schools of Art. From 1939-40 Smith was visiting art master at Framlingham College, then he served in Royal Air Force, 1940-45; a collection of his Air Force pictures toured the country in aid of a Forces' charity, finishing at Cooling Gallery, opened by Group Captain Sir Douglas Bader. After the war Smith studied at Slade School of Fine Art, winning the Abbey Major Rome Scholarship at the British School, Rome, 1949. Further teaching included senior lecturer in Fine Art at the Chelsea School of Art, 1965-79. Smith was elected RE in 1951, and showed at the Royal Academy, the New Art Centre and elsewhere. He had over 60 solo shows in Britain and abroad, later ones including a retrospective at the Evesham Arts Festival, a major show at Sogo Art Gallery, Yokohama, Japan and a retrospective at Bankside Gallery, 1996. Smith was highly regarded in Japan, where he painted all the major harbours. He was official artist to the British Antarctic Survey, 1975-76, with a second voyage in 1979-80. In 1982-84 he was invited by Trinity House to record the lighthouses of England and Wales. He illustrated Richard Woodman's book View from the Sea and Anthony Fogg's The Discovery of Antarctica. HRH The late Duke of Edinburgh, the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge, Barclays Bank and many other corporate and private collections hold examples of Smith’s work, as well as public galleries in the UK and internationaly