Jim Smyth

Male Figurative Study - Original Lithograph on Paper

1960s

Jim Smyth has studied at the Academia de Belle Arti in Florence, Italy, École des Beaux-Arts Geneva, New York Academy and The Art Students League. He is also a graduate from UC Berkeley with a degree in fine art. Although academically trained, Smyth practices and teaches a more impressionistic style of painting, focusing on Alla Prima technique. He is particularly knowledgeable about drawing, perspective, color theory and the human figure, his passion. Smyth, with an extensive academic knowledge, has a profound love of all human representations as illustrated by his humorous quick sketches from life. He also practices and teaches oil painting and pastels. When not in Provence, or Southeastern France, Smyth teaches intensely in art schools, art centers and several colleges in the Bay Area. He is a beloved instructor and his classes fill in quickly as he is very knowledgeable. On his return to the United States, he began studying with Mr. Alanson Appleton at the College of San Mateo, California.

Smyth was a founding member of the Appletree Etchers, Inc., an etching print shop organized by Mr. Appleton and his students to develop and promote color intaglio. Smyth served as Master Printer at the studio for many years, perfecting the techniques of intaglio and developing the color theories of Mr. Appleton as applied to the deep etched plate. Smyth received his degree from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1972 and holds the California Community College Certificate and an Adult Education Certificate. He was invited to teach "Anatomy for Artists" at Foothill College, Los Altos Hills, California, as a result of his many years of dissection of the cadaver and developed the course of study of Perspective for the college. During this period, he began teaching Life Drawing at the Pacific Art League of Palo Alto, California.

During the following 30 years, Smyth has taught an average of twelve classes per week at the Pacific Art League of Palo Alto, the Palo Alto Art Center and the Burlingame Recreation Department, among others in all phases of drawing and painting. He has conducted many workshops for the California Academy of Painters in many aspects of drawing and painting. Currently, he is an Adjunct Professor of Drawing at the College of San Mateo, California. He is an authority on the materials of painting and drawing, techniques of traditional drawing and painting, color theory, perspective and anatomy for artists. In his career in Life Drawing, Smyth has made over 200,000 drawings from the model. In addition to studies at Berkeley, Smyth has studied at the College of San Mateo, Foothill College, De Anza College, Mission College and West Valley College, all in California. One of the pivotal points in his career was studying with Mr. Maynard Dixon Stewart at the University of San Jose, California. He spent a year at the New York Academy of Art, where he was offered a full scholarship. He also had a full scholarship at the Art Students League of New York. He concurrently attended classes at the National Academy of Design in New York. Among others, Smyth studied with M. Andrejivec, Ted Schmidt, Elliot Goldfinger, Gary Fagin, Ted Jacobs, Leo Neufeld, David Leffel, Jack Ferragasso, Jim Childs and Everett Raymond Kinstler and Kim English. Smyth has also studied with the noted painter and colorist, Ovanes Berberian. In 2002 Jim was invited to study at the Academy of Art in St. Petersburg, Russia, where he worked in Life Drawing and Life Painting. Smyth is a popular lecturer, a sought after demonstrator and juror. He is the recipient of many awards for both, his painting and his teaching. In 1988 and again in 2003, he received the Kenneth Washburn Award in recognition of his teaching career at the Pacific Art League and in 1993 was awarded the Paul Emerson Award, recognizing his contributions to the arts in the community. Smyth is listed in the Who's Who in the West and is co-founder of both the California Academy of Painters and the International Visual Arts Foundation.

Smyth and his wife and partner Brigitte Curt have traveled and painted in Hawaii, China, Australia, France, Spain, Belgium, Germany and Russia. They lead annual painting trips to France for their students and other painters. He continues his busy schedule of classes in the Bay Area of California while finding time to continue working at his easel.

(Biography provided by Robert Azensky Fine Art)