Ed SMITH
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Ed Smith is a member of the National Academy, a Guggenheim Fellow in Sculpture and Drawing and a member of the Royal British Society of Sculptors. His work is represented in public and private collections in the United States and abroad. These include The British Museum, The Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp Belgium, Ministry of the Flemish Community, The Hood Museum, the Davis Museum, Yale University, the National Academy Museum and many more.
He has over 80 one person exhibitions and innumerable group exhibitions which include, the Queens Museum, Brooklyn Museum, The Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh Scotland, Hillwood Art Museum, Caversham Press South Africa, Fleming Museum, Schenectady Museum, The Albright Knox Museum, the Albrecht-Kemper Museum, The Arkell Museum and many others.
His work has been written about and reviewed in the New York Times, Sculpture Magazine, The Baltimore Evening Sun, Art News, the Miami Herald, The Albany Times Union, Giornale Dell’Arte, San Francisco Examiner, Art New England, and many others.
Currently, Gallery Director, Director of Marist Venice Biennale Program, and Professor of Art at Marist College, Ed Smith has been a Visiting Artist, Lecturer, Artist–in-Residence, Professor, and Distinguished Visiting Artist at American University, Bennington College, Bard College, Brandeis University, Boston University, Clark University, Dartmouth College, Dia Art Center, Kansas State University, Lacoste School of the Arts in France, New York Studio School, Parsons School of Art, Pratt Institute, Swathmore College, School of Visual Arts, Trumbull College, Yale University, University of New Hampshire, University of Pennsylvania, Vermont Studio Center, University of Tel Aviv, Israel, Glasgow School of Art and many, many others.
Awards and honors include awards for Teaching Excellence, National Foundation for the Advancement in the Arts, Teaching Excellence Marist College, Ford Foundation Grant, First Alternate Prix de Rome, Fulbright Award, Associate Fellow Trumbull College, Yale University, NY State Council on the Arts and others.
His work is primarily involved with mythic and heroic aspects of the Artist and man.
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My work is based on myths and in heroism.
The need for a monument or the remembrance of a standing figure has not passed.
Previously they were in city squares, homes, offices, cemeteries and other places, remembering great deeds, great men and actions. They called to mind a remembrance of those things to the populace, asking of them to aspire to something. They embodied dreams and hopes of men, cities, states and countries.
The work I submit to you is a memory of that past. These figures are real, some more abstract than others but all referencing that thing undying, the human form. And our individuality……….They commemorate the past, present and future to say Man/Woman was here. Great things can happen in the present to inspire…….. Like a standing figure fighting gravity with the need, the urgent need to stand upright. These characters are very similar to us; they are funny, witty, pathetic, noble and more. They are just as we are. They are our images.
These bronzes bring into focus what we overlook and they create a sense of historical continuity with the great art of the past in particular Rodin, Tetrode, Giambologna and more. They are fragments;”partials”, but they always reference the body and the nobility of the standing figure, be they god or man. There is greatness in that fight against gravity.
My work is primarily involved with the mythic and heroic aspects of the Artist and by extension mankind. It isn’t fashionable or ironic. I realize my work can be tough at times, "dark" maybe; this is because it reflects the "human condition". Let me assure you there is no Irony here……….
I believe this and trust that a caring eye, through time, will see this as noble and courageous. I am a Romantic and I make no apologies. I do this work from a desire to tell a story and produce something epic. Nonetheless these drawings are all based upon Heroism, the life of the Artist and the struggle in contemporary life to do and create something of worth.
They are reminders of the heroism that is still possible. But if all that you glean from this work is simply this, then that is enough; They reveal the determination of a man’s life.
Ed Smith
