About contact: jillian.vites@gmail.com
Born in a Scottish Border town in 1941 and son of a livestock auctioneer, Alan Smith studied Drawing and Painting at Edinburgh College of Art.
After his first job as a medical artist in Glasgow University Department of Medicine, he worked as tutor in drawing and painting in Northern Nigeria during the mid-1960s. The outbreak of civil war in 1966 eventually obliged him to return to Edinburgh where in 1967 he established himself as a painter and part-time art teacher.
Despite some early successes, Smith found painting limiting as a personal tool for expressing his ideas. In 1967 the engineer Prof. Alexander Thom published his new discoveries in the mathematical and astronomical workings of the ancient standing stones, which at that time, revealed to Smith the possibility of a different personal artistic heritage. While art history as taught, provided a lineage that saw its origins in the ancient valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates, through Thom, Smith glimpsed an older and conceptually closer personal line by way of the Megalithic standing stones of Scotland.
In 1969 Smith co-founded the Ceramic Workshop Edinburgh. This platform allowed him to explore his newly evolving practice as well serving as a creative hub for artists.
Out of the eventual closure of the workshop, with the help of the art lawyer Henry Lydiate and the agreement of the Workshop Committee, Smith converted the workshop’s remaining funds into the artwork, ‘£1512’. This went on to be known internationally as, ‘The Money Work’ and played a large role in directing Smith’s practice.
In 1975 Smith removed himself to the remote and abandoned monastery of S. Ambrogio on a mountainside near the small city of Gubbio in Italy. In this secluded location, he worked extensively and was represented by the Veronese galleries, Studio la Città and Galleria Ferrari. He exhibited in Europe and America for a number of years, during which time he returned to Edinburgh before finally settling in London in 1979.
In 1991, shortly after his fiftieth birthday, Alan Smith made a conscious decision to remove himself from the world of public art.
Now, twenty-three years on and after a life threatening illness in 2013-14, Smith found the need to return again to the language of art and is at present completing a new body of work.
Using entirely new materials, in Smith’s ‘renaissance’ series - The New World - he builds digital images that reference the spirit of many of his works made over the last fifty years. This series is currently awaiting its inaugural launch.
After his first job as a medical artist in Glasgow University Department of Medicine, he worked as tutor in drawing and painting in Northern Nigeria during the mid-1960s. The outbreak of civil war in 1966 eventually obliged him to return to Edinburgh where in 1967 he established himself as a painter and part-time art teacher.
Despite some early successes, Smith found painting limiting as a personal tool for expressing his ideas. In 1967 the engineer Prof. Alexander Thom published his new discoveries in the mathematical and astronomical workings of the ancient standing stones, which at that time, revealed to Smith the possibility of a different personal artistic heritage. While art history as taught, provided a lineage that saw its origins in the ancient valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates, through Thom, Smith glimpsed an older and conceptually closer personal line by way of the Megalithic standing stones of Scotland.
In 1969 Smith co-founded the Ceramic Workshop Edinburgh. This platform allowed him to explore his newly evolving practice as well serving as a creative hub for artists.
Out of the eventual closure of the workshop, with the help of the art lawyer Henry Lydiate and the agreement of the Workshop Committee, Smith converted the workshop’s remaining funds into the artwork, ‘£1512’. This went on to be known internationally as, ‘The Money Work’ and played a large role in directing Smith’s practice.
In 1975 Smith removed himself to the remote and abandoned monastery of S. Ambrogio on a mountainside near the small city of Gubbio in Italy. In this secluded location, he worked extensively and was represented by the Veronese galleries, Studio la Città and Galleria Ferrari. He exhibited in Europe and America for a number of years, during which time he returned to Edinburgh before finally settling in London in 1979.
In 1991, shortly after his fiftieth birthday, Alan Smith made a conscious decision to remove himself from the world of public art.
Now, twenty-three years on and after a life threatening illness in 2013-14, Smith found the need to return again to the language of art and is at present completing a new body of work.
Using entirely new materials, in Smith’s ‘renaissance’ series - The New World - he builds digital images that reference the spirit of many of his works made over the last fifty years. This series is currently awaiting its inaugural launch.