Gary Ernest Smith

"Profile in Red and Blue"

2018

"The comment I hear most often about my paintings is 'happy'". I've loved art all of my life and it warms my heart to know that I'm able to pass that love and joy on to others. I use...

"The comment I hear most often about my paintings is 'happy'". I've loved art all of my life and it warms my heart to know that I'm able to pass that love and joy on to others. I use...

Lauded by critics and collectors alike, the art of Gary Ernest Smith resonates in the mind and memory of contemporary America. Over the past years the artist’s one-man shows have attracted the attention of collectors from coast to coast. His three year exhibit, “Journey I Search of Lost Images” hung in 22 museums and institutes across the United States. In an exhibit curated by the Brooklyn Museum of Art, his work toured the New Orleans Contemporary Art Center, San Jose Museum of Art, the Palm Springs Desert Museum and many more prestigious art institutions. Although he must strictly limit the number of commissions he accepts, his mural size paintings are highly prized by corporate collectors. Gary Ernest Smith was born and raised in a relatively isolated farm community 25 miles northeast of Baker City, Oregon. His interests and intensity for painting began at an early age and progressed through college degrees, numerous commissions and awards to a full time pursuit of painting. The commission work that dominated the early years eventually stifled his creativity. Dissatisfaction with this career direction forced him to reach inward and search beyond popular style and accepted artistic norms to a personal vision. Following years of artistic training and experimentation, subject matter began to emerge based on the artist’s background of a rural life-style that celebrates the values of hard work and self-reliance. These aspects of Smith’s life came together and became the catalyst for his distinctive style. Living in the west, his work is primarily of that region, but it is not western in the traditional sense. Although it defies precise classification, the artist considers his style “minimal” and seeks to express the essence and simplicity of each subject. Whatever the focus might be, his work expresses the artistic elements of bold form and color. These two components become the vehicle that melds the style and subject into a symbolic visual language, expanding the artistic appeal beyond the west...

Lauded by critics and collectors alike, the art of Gary Ernest Smith resonates in the mind and memory of contemporary America. Over the past years th...

GOVERT VAN EMMERIK (1808-1882) View on the Governor’s Palace in Paramaribo, Surinam Signed and dated 1856 Oil on canvas, 70 x 90 cm In large gilt...

Abraham Johannes Romswinckel (1810-1856) Self-portrait in Indonesian landscape Inscribed Abr. Joh. Romswinckel, geb. Batavia 17 Oct. 1810, overl...

Very Large Landscape Oil on canvas by Henry Bright, Signed by the artist. Exceptional size. Great Wall filler by this accomplished artist...

A sawah landscape, Sumatra Signed and dated 'Sonnega '54' (lower right), and annotated 'Voor Jan de Bas 1-1-1970 / R de Bas' (on the reverse) oil on canvas, 50,5x60,5 cm Provenance: - Collection Pieter de Bas (1909-1979) Mr de Bas was head of the MULO school and acting head of the HBS school in Medan. Thence by descent to the present owner. Exhibited: - Hotel de Boer, Medan 1954, where acquired by the first owner. The light I observed everywhere was of a special quality, fluorescent blue, shone from nowhere but radiated from every point, oddly with great depth and intensity. The light in an entirely different dimension came from nowhere and went nowhere shimmering with the glow of a bright blue jewel. The most important thing I discovered was of being omnipresent and able to understand everything at the same time, yes I could fathom creation completely. Auke Sonnega, born March 9, 1910 in Leeuwarden, known as the painter, primarily of young Balinese men and women. Originally raised in the reformed denomination, the parents of Auke apparently practised theosophy and their children, including Auke were taught these principles. The talent for drawing revealed itself at an early stage which in 1926 lead to a 4-year study of textile design at the Academy for Art and Craft in Amsterdam. He completed the academy in 1930 and worked in a carpet factory in Twente until 1934 and then followed in his sister Aafje’s footsteps leaving the Netherlands to go to the Dutch East Indies where in 1935 he started working as a graphic designer with an advertising bureau in Batavia. He was able to travel through Java and Bali on the motorbike that he brought with him from Europe, and was paid for his travelogue, enhanced with his own photo’s which appeared in several Dutch newspapers and magazines. In the 1930’s two Europeans, Walter Spies and Rudolf Bonnet...