Skip to main content

Richard Smith Abstract Prints

English, 1931-2016
Charles Richard "Dick" Smith was an English printmaker and painter. He Attended St Albans School of Art followed by post-graduate studies at the Royal College of Art, London, from 1954-57. Smith shared a flat-cum-studio with Peter Blake in his second year at the RCA, and then again for two years after he left the college in 1957. When Terence Conran's Soup Kitchen opened on Fleet Street in the late 1950s, it featured a letter-collage mural by Smith and Blake. Michael Chow would later commission Smith to design installations for his restaurant in Los Angeles, and Chow and Conran have remained two of his biggest supporters. In 1959 he moved to New York to teach on a Harkness Fellowship, staying for two years, where he produced paintings combining the formal qualities of many of the American abstract painters which made references to American commercial culture. The artist's first solo exhibition was at the Green Gallery. As his work matured it tended to be more minimal, often painted using one colour with a second only as an accent. In trying to find ways of transposing ideas, Smith began to question the two-dimensional properties of art itself and to find ways by which a painting could express the shape of reality as he saw it. These principles he carried into his graphic work by introducing cut, folded and stapled elements into his prints; some works were multi-leaved screenprinting, and others printed onto three-dimensional fabricated metal. Smith returned to England in 1963 - specifically East Tytherton, Wiltshire where Howard Hodgkin was a neighbour - and gained critical acclaim for extending the boundaries of painting into three dimensions, creating sculptural shaped canvases with monumental presence, which literally protruded into the space of the gallery. Evocative titles such as Panatella and Revlon, and cosmetic, synthetic colours alluded to the consumer landscapes of urban America which had proved so influential. He showed at the Kasmin Gallery, a venture between Kas and the Marquess of Dufferin and Ava in New Bond Street, throughout the 60s, more-widely known as David Hockney's first gallery. Smith was invited to exhibit at the XXXV Venice Biennale as the official British artist in 1970. Smith taught with Richard Hamilton at Gateshead in 1965, where he met Mark Lancaster and Stephen Buckley, and again in 2000, becoming close to the artist and his wife, Terry. By the late 1960s Smith's ambition to produce paintings which shared a common sensibility with other media, such as film and photography, began to wane and he focused on the formal qualities of painting. First exhibited in New York in 1971, the traditional wooden supports of the canvases were replaced by aluminium rods and strings, allowing them to be hung freely in response to the surrounding architecture. Smith continued in the subsequent decades to construct site-specific works in public and private spaces often hanging from the ceilings or architectural supports. He resettled in Patchogue, New York in around 1977. Smith was awarded the CBE in 1971.
to
1
12
6
40
10
2
Overall Width
to
Overall Height
to
65
1
1
81
536
165
164
152
70
2
56
8
1
30
22
18
36
30
7
3
1
5
3
62
8
Artist: Richard Smith
Paperclip Suite II (yellow / blue)
By Richard Smith
Located in London, GB
Etching, Edition of 25 45 x 45 cms (17.5 x 17.5 ins)
Category

1970s Abstract Richard Smith Abstract Prints

Materials

Etching

Paperclip Suite IIb (yellow / blue)
By Richard Smith
Located in London, GB
Edition of 25 45 x 45 cms (17.5 x 17.5 ins)
Category

1970s Abstract Richard Smith Abstract Prints

Materials

Etching

Paperclip Suite IIc (yellow/blue)
By Richard Smith
Located in London, GB
Etching, Edition of 25 45 x 45 cms (17.5 x 17.5 ins)
Category

1970s Abstract Richard Smith Abstract Prints

Materials

Etching

Paperclip Suite I (brown)
By Richard Smith
Located in London, GB
Edition of 25 44.5 x 44.5 cms (17 1/2 x 17 1/2 ins)
Category

1970s Abstract Richard Smith Abstract Prints

Materials

Etching

Paperclip Suite I (brown)
By Richard Smith
Located in London, GB
Edition of 25 44.5 x 44.5 cms (17 1/2 x 17 1/2 ins)
Category

1970s Abstract Richard Smith Abstract Prints

Materials

Etching

Russian II (red)
By Richard Smith
Located in London, GB
Edition of 50 51 x 51 cms (20 x 20 ins)
Category

1970s Abstract Richard Smith Abstract Prints

Materials

Etching

Paperclip Suite I (brown)
By Richard Smith
Located in London, GB
Edition of 25 44.5 x 44.5 cms (17 1/2 x 17 1/2 ins)
Category

1970s Abstract Richard Smith Abstract Prints

Materials

Etching

Paperclip Suite I (brown)
By Richard Smith
Located in London, GB
Edition of 25 44.5 x 44.5 cms (17 1/2 x 17 1/2 ins)
Category

1970s Abstract Richard Smith Abstract Prints

Materials

Etching

Paperclip Suite I (brown)
By Richard Smith
Located in London, GB
Edition of 25 44.5 x 44.5 cms (17 1/2 x 17 1/2 ins)
Category

1970s Abstract Richard Smith Abstract Prints

Materials

Etching

Drawing Boards II (No.3)
By Richard Smith
Located in London, GB
Edition of 30, Set of 5 74.9 x 59.1 cms (29 1/2 x 23 1/4 ins)
Category

1980s Abstract Richard Smith Abstract Prints

Materials

Etching

Two of a Kind Ib (yellow line on green)
By Richard Smith
Located in London, GB
70 x 76.2 cms (27 1/2 x 30 ins) Edition of 50
Category

1970s Abstract Richard Smith Abstract Prints

Materials

Color, Lithograph

Two of a Kind IIIa (bright red x on green)
By Richard Smith
Located in London, GB
100.7 x 46.3 cms (40 x 18 1/4 ins) Edition of 90
Category

1970s Abstract Richard Smith Abstract Prints

Materials

Color, Lithograph

Richard Smith abstract prints for sale on 1stDibs.

Find a wide variety of authentic Richard Smith abstract prints available for sale on 1stDibs. If you’re browsing the collection of abstract prints to introduce a pop of color in a neutral corner of your living room or bedroom, you can find work that includes elements of orange, green, blue and other colors. You can also browse by medium to find art by Richard Smith in etching, lithograph, screen print and more. Much of the original work by this artist or collective was created during the 20th century and is mostly associated with the abstract style. Not every interior allows for large Richard Smith abstract prints, so small editions measuring 11 inches across are available. Customers who are interested in this artist might also find the work of Piero Dorazio, Pierre Muckensturm, and Sandra Salamonová. Richard Smith abstract prints prices can differ depending upon medium, time period and other attributes. On 1stDibs, the price for these items starts at $216 and tops out at $2,500, while the average work can sell for $1,000.

Recently Viewed

View All