SMITH, ERNEST (1928 -)

"Portrait Of A Young Man" (c.1990)
oil on board
83 x 60cm
signed lower right
*private collection, Geelong
 
Ernest Walter Smith is an underrated Australian Surrealist & Gallery Director. He studied art in Melbourne & Sydney. He taught at the Gordon Institute of Technology, Geelong, transferring to the South Australian School of Art in 1963. After a short period as an art critic for the Adelaide Sunday Mail, he was granted a scholarship to St Louis University, USA, where he obtained his Master of Fine Arts degree. The lack of appreciation of figurative artists in Australia during the 1950s & 1960s apart from the major players (Dobell & Drysdale), meant a host of creatives looked to study abroad, including Smith. In America he also lectured in art history. In 1974, he was appointed Director-Designate of the Auckland City Art Gallery, where he curated the first major Van Gogh Retrospective in NZ. He later became Director of the Dalhousie University Art Gallery in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, where he brought many important European Exhibitions to the country for the first time. In 1990 he was appointed Director of the Swan Hill Regional Gallery of Contemporary Art, Swan Hill, Victoria. His work has been represented in the NGV. 
 
Smith is known best for his miniature Surrealist portrait studies, with recurring themes, such as detached eyeballs, geometric shapes and metropolitan vistas, reminiscent of his contemporary, Jeffrey Smart. However, this impressive oil is one of the largest works Smith ever produced, and comes from a private Geelong Collection!!