| BiographicalHistory | Keir Owen Walter Smith was born (1 February 1950) in Gravesend, Kent, son of Walter and Joan Irene Smith. His father was a tally-clerk at Tilbury docks, a member of the Labour Party and a local councillor. Smith was educated at Northfleet Secondary Modern School and Gravesend Grammar School, and also Dartford Technical College. In 1969 he began an undergraduate fine art course at the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, under the tutelage of Ian Stephenson. He followed Stephenson to Chelsea School of Art (1973-1975) for postgraduate study where he began to move from painting to work in three dimensions.
Smith developed his early practice in a semi - performative vein, documenting his activity and interventions in landscape using photography, drawing, natural materials and objects to explore narratives and histories within specific locale. This early work was exhibited including objects, drawings and slides, in London at the Air Gallery in 1977 and at the Acme Gallery in 1980, which were his first solo shows after leaving University. Smith also undertook a junior fellowship at Cardiff College of Art during this period, (1975-1976). His first group exhibition was the Northern Young Contemporaries at the Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, in 1973, in which he was prize winner.
Smith undertook two residencies at Grizedale Forest in the early 1980s, (1979-1980 and 1981-1982), these were his first public art commissions developing his practice within landscape, focusing on site-specifity and the conjoining of materials with their histories. He continued to undertake commissions in the public realm, including work at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park in the early 1980s, the Forest of Dean Sculpture Trail in 1986 and Sculpture at Goodwood, West Sussex, now the Cass Sculpture Foundation in 1997 for which he created his largest bronze sculpture, 'Stefano'. Smith also undertook a major public commission for the Public Art Development Trust in 1992, creating a 15 part stone frieze, 'From the Dark Cave', for the exterior elevation of Henrietta House, Henrietta Place, London W1.
He exhibited extensively in solo and group exhibitions in the UK and his work is held in many public and private collections, including Tate, the Victoria & Albert Museum and City of Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery and the Museum of London. Smith was a dedicated and generous teacher, working as Senior Lecturer in Sculpture at City of Birmingham Polytechnic, (1979-1990), and Principle lecturer and Reader in Sculpture at Wimbledon College of Art, University of the Arts London, (1991-2007).
Smith received the diagnosis of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in early 1996 and worked industriously for the last decade of his life despite ill health. During this period his work focused primarily upon iconography, narrative cycles and their liturgical contexts within the art and architecture of the Italian Renaissance, a subject he was passionate about and in pursuit of which he learned Italian and regularly travelled to Italy.
Smith lived and worked in London and Suffolk. He met his wife, Clare Rowe, 1981 and they went on to marry in 1997.
Keir Smith died on 7 March 2007 aged fifty seven. |
| Description | The Keir Smith Archive is extensive and comprehensive, comprising of sketchbooks, drawings, correspondence, photographs, published works and texts, slides, exhibition publicity materials, financial papers, a selection of Keir Smith's personal books and source materials. The sketchbooks, of which there is a complete set of 121 dating from c. 1965 - 2007, [2012.23/A/1-121], contain a wealth of information including notes, sketches and references. There are also over 350 sketches and paintings by the artist including computer drawings which he made in the late 1980s.
His work is recorded in detail in photographs and slides, including many images of works when exhibited. These are complemented by papers and correspondence relating to exhibitions and commissions taken from his filing cabinets. Smith's teaching at Wimbledon College of Art is also documented in the form of teaching notes and correspondence.
Other visual materials include a series of 19 presentation folders, several of which are compiled by Keir Smith, which contain photographs and published materials, documenting his work from 1969-2008.
Smith's source materials are in the form of slides, photographs and postcards including 100s of images of the art, architecture and sculpture of the Italian Renaissance, which he re-visited in the making of his work. His extensive library is also represented in the Archive by a selection, made by Clare Rowe, of key texts and publications. The Archive also includes written material by Smith, of both published and unpublished texts. |