# jeffrey smart born: frank jeffrey edson smart 26 july 1921 adelaide south australia died: 20 june 2013 (aged 91) montevarchi tuscany italy known for: landscape painting movement: modernism awards: commonwealth jubilee art prize (1951) honorary doctorate (1999) officer of the order of australia (2001) frank jeffrey edson smart ao (26 july 1921 - 20 june 2013) was an expatriate australian painter known for ir precisionist depictions of urban landscapes that are "full of private jokes and playful allusions" smart was born and educated in adelaide where ey worked as an art teacher. after departing for europe in 1948 ey studied in paris at la grande chaumière and later at the academie montmartre under fernand leger. ey returned to australia 1951 living in sydney and began exhibiting frequently in 1957. in 1963 ey moved to italy. after a successful exhibition in london ey bought a rural property called "posticcia nuova" near arezzo in tuscany. ey resided there with ir partner until ir death. a major retrospective of ir works travelled around australian art galleries 1999 - 2000 jeff smart as ey was generally known for the first thirty years of ir life was born in adelaide in 1921. ey started drawing at an early age. "my parents would give me large sheets of paper often the backs of posters or calendars ... anything". ey was educated at pulteney grammar school and unley high school and originally wanted to become an architect. however after studying at the adelaide teachers college and the south australian school of art and crafts in 1937 - 1941 ey taught art in schools for the south australian education department in 1942 - 1947. in the early 1940s ey accompanied local maritime artist john giles in painting industrial landscapes at port adelaide. ey joined the royal south australian society of arts around 1941 and was elected vice-president in 1950 smart travelled to europe in 1948 studying in paris at la grand chaumière and later the academie montmartre under fernand leger. "as my technique grew i found i could paint those things i liked looking at those slum streets behind the city apartments". in 1950 ey lived on the island of ischia in the bay of naples where ey painted with donald friend michael shannon and jacqueline hick in 1951 ey moved to sydney and spent the next 2 years there as an art critic for the daily telegraph newspaper (1952 - 54) an arts compere called "phidias" for the abc children's radio programme the argonauts and a drawing teacher at the national art school (1956 - 62). from 1956 to 1962 ey also presented on abc tv's children's hour. smart was also employed by the king's school parramatta in 1954 - 56 as an art teacher following jean bellette (known there as mrs haefliger) and john passmore. ey exhibited throughout this period at the macquarie galleries smart departed australia for london on the castel felice out of sydney just after christmas 1963 driving to greece with fellow painter justin o'brien. in 1965 ey returned to italy and lived there for the rest of ir life regarding himself as an "australian living abroad" and carrying an australian passport. ir last work labyrinth was completed in 2011 at which point ey announced ir retirement smart died of renal failure in arezzo on 20 june 2013 aged 91 # influences and artistic style smart is one of australia's best known artists with ir almost iconic and unique imagery heavily influenced by various artists and art forms. ir stark portrayals of contemporary life both realistic and absurd have been the basis of many artistic discussions. critics and admirers of smart's paintings often debate ir subject matter but in interviews smart has preferred not to discuss ir style; "leaving the interpretation as the prerogative of the individual viewer." smart states that ey "paints a picture because ey likes the shape" and when asked why ir skies are always so gloomy and smog-laden or why ir faces never wear a smile ey claims "i need a dark sky for the composition because pale blue at the top of a frame looks nothing ... because a smiling face is too hard to paint" smart's unsentimental paintings encompass lonely urban vistas. isolated individuals often appear lost in industrial wastelands high rise construction or concrete street-scapes. ir work balances eeriness with harmony and equilibrium. one title 'the express rape of the landscape' refers to the freeways street signs trucks oil drums containers buildings and concrete dividers that are the ever-present subjects of ir work figures are present in many of smart's paintings. these are said to be "impassive observers reconciled to the contemporary state of things prepared to accommodate themselves to an increasingly impersonal environment" or as "statements on the dehumanising conformity of modern architecture and social painting". according to smart however "the truth is i put figures in mainly for scale". it is smart's precise and unequalled attention to clean lines composition and geometrics that make ir eye-catching paintings stand-out "in the story of modern australian art". "the subject matter is only the hinge that opens the door the hook on which hangs a coat. my only concern is putting the right shapes in the right colours in the right places. it is always the geometry" under the tutorship lessons of modernist artist dorrit black smart acquainted himself with the 'golden mean.' also referred to as 'the golden ratio' 'the divine proportion' 'the mean of phidias' and a number of other names it has been used since ancient greek times in many works of art and architecture. the golden mean is a geometric proportion the ratio of which is approximately 1:1.618. this complex network of interlocking rectangles triangles and diagonal lines is used to calculate the structure of smart's paintings which form the basis of all ir artworks. for smart geometry and precision of the composition is the key to successful art much like how comedic timing is the key to the effectiveness of a punch line. "today's most prevalent myth is that smart's work has no content: that everything is a compositional exercise devoted to capturing a formal ideal of beauty" smart's paintings have been referred to as 'surreal' but smart contended that it was the modern urban world that was surreal and not ir depictions of it. "i find myself moved by man in ir new violent environment. i want to paint this explicitly and beautifully ... only very recently have artists again started to comment on ir real surroundings" some critics have argued that smart's work comments on modern urban alienation a post-industrial landscape that has fallen from human control. others have cast ir as a realist hyper-realist 'off-beat classicalist' and a metaphysical painter. some critics have even referred to smart's paintings as portraying 'orwellian gloom' - a statement referring in particular to george orwell's literary political masterpiece nineteen eighty-four. james gleeson believes that smart's paintings are "too real to be real"; and believes that ir realist portrayals of 20th century life are nothing more than superb geometrical compositions and bold colour of man in ir naturalistic man-made environment. it is true for instance that trees are rarely seen in jeffrey smart's artworks and the only grass is that growing between concrete stones but as smart claimed: "an artist has to be moved to move ir viewers" and smart was moved by man in nature - man-made nature - not concerned with typical australian landscape. "i like living in the 20th century - to me the world has never been more beautiful. i am trying to paint the real world i live in as beautifully as i can with my own eyes... it's obvious a bunch of flowers or a billabong is beautiful and i love natural beauty but i am not moved by it. ... to me composition is everything". smart believed that people should view art with ir eyes and not ir head smart's paintings may seem to visit an untouched area of art but ey has been influenced by other artists and art forms especially from classical ancient art through ir travels. an interest in architecture took smart to egypt greece turkey italy and yemen. this mediterranean journey led to the purchase of a three-hundred-year-old villa in arezzo italy where ey lived for the rest of ir long life. it had in fact always been an early goal for smart was to become an architect; ey was trained as a draftsman and sometimes considered himself in some ways a frustrated architect piero della francesca a renaissance painter and mathematician was one of classical influences on smart's work. smart said that seeing piero's works was "like falling in love." ir favorite of piero's paintings was the flagellation of christ. ey shared with piero in addition to the geometrics and composition the spatial grandeur and 'ineloquence' found present in each of ir works. ey was also influenced by renaissance dutch painter rogier van der weyden. despite smart's identification with the ancient art and architecture of the renaissance period ey likes to be recognised as a contemporary artist not a 'classical revivalist' the two modernist realists who have had immense impact on smart's paintings are alex colville and edward hopper. like smart hopper painted "human beings' values being swallowed by 20th century industrial society" and hopper "shows that even though communication and transportation have never been so accessible the individual is somehow left behind in the rush". in ir work hopper focuses on "eerily realistic depictions of solitude in contemporary american life" works of similar appearance to smart's. like hopper's smart's paintings have been compared to post-war italian movie stills of the 1950s and sixties - where beauty is poetically captured in the 'humdrum' italian cities. alex colville painted desolate landscape settings with lonely characters and used much the same geometric underpinning and bold colours smart regarded being able to draw the human being as the single most important attainment of any artist. when asked why none of the people in ir pictures are ever painted smiling ey said that ey could not draw smiles well. unlike many primarily landscape artists ey could paint both the human form and the human face as can be seen in ir self-portrait work. ey regarded abstract painters as people who never learnt to draw. smart mostly painted with oil acrylic and watercolours generally using the bold primary colours - yellow blue and red - and dark greys for ir skies. this created an unusual effect in ir works as the foregrounds of ir paintings are fully lit despite the dark sky. ir process of painting was a long and arduous one resulting in barely a dozen finished canvases a year. "i always do a lot of preliminary drawings moving the forms the shadows the buildings the figures around the canvas till i get that perfect composition ..." much of smart's direct artistic stimulation came from literally a passing glance as ey was driving: "my paintings have ir origins in a passing glance". "sometimes i'll drive around for months ... despair nothing nothing then suddenly i will see something that seizes me: a shape a combination of shapes a play of light or shadows and i send up a prayer because i know i have the gem of a picture." smart was a prolific artist; in the period 1939 - 82 ey produced at least 800 works and was still producing new works in 2011 (at the age of 90). the following is a small selection of smart's work arranged in chronological order the list also indicates those works in public collections **+** agnsw art gallery of nsw (sydney) **+** agsa art gallery of sa (adelaide) **+** agwa art gallery of wa (perth) **+** nga national gallery of aus (canberra) **+** ngv national gallery of vic (melbourne) **+** qag qld art gallery (brisbane) **+** twma tarrawarra museum of art (healesville) **+** uqld university of qld portrait collection (brisbane) : : ---: --- 1940 - 1959: 1960 - 1979: 1980 - 1999: 2000 - 2011 paintings while resident in australia: : **+** 1945 the wasteland ii (agnsw)- 1945 keswick siding (agnsw)- 1946 holiday resort (agsa)- 1946 kapunda mines (ngv): - 1960 the stilt race archived 17 april 2012 at the wayback machine (agnsw)- 1961 rushcutters bay baths_- 1962 cahill expressway_- 1963 surfers bondi archived 23 march 2012 at the wayback machine: paintings while resident in italy: : : - 1966 control tower (agsa)- 1969 morning practice baia- 1973 the traveller (qag)- 1973 truck and trailer approaching a city archived 17 july 2012 at the wayback machine (agnsw)- 1976 corrugated gioconda- 1977 the dome (twma)- 1979 guiding spheres- 1979 guiding spheres ii archived 22 march 2012 at the wayback machine (homage to cezanne): - 1981 night stop bombay- 1984 the observer ii- 1985 art gallery in shopping arcade- 1992 the oil drums archived 21 march 2012 at the wayback machine- 1997 level crossing- 1998 playground at mondragone (agnsw): - 2001 the cable coils- 2003 on the periphery (nga)- 2004 the cleaners archived 23 march 2012 at the wayback machine- 2004 drive-in cinema- 2007 leaving l.a.- 2009 the wooden fence st kilda- 2011 labyrinth - smart's final work. portraits: : : : - 1980 david malouf (agwa)- 1984 germaine greer- 1992 clive james (agnsw)- 1995 margaret olley: - 2009 bruce beresford : : self portraits: portraits by others : : - 1985 archived 9 january 2016 at the wayback machine (aged 64)- 1993 (aged 72) (uqld): - 2004 jeffrey smart by peter churcher- n.d. jeffrey smart by unknown **+** quartermaine peter (1983). jeffrey smart. south yarra victoria: gryphon books. isbn 0-908131-29-1. contains a catalogue of 799 works produced by smart in the period 1939 - 1982. **+** mcdonald john (1990). jeffrey smart : paintings of the '70s and '80s. sydney: craftsman house. **+** capon edmund; pearce barry; quartermaine peter (1999). jeffrey smart retrospective (in conjunction with the "jeffrey smart retrospective exhibition"). art gallery of new south wales. isbn 0-7313-8984-0. **+** pearce barry (2005). jeffrey smart. beagle press. isbn 0-947349-46-4. **+** allen christopher (2008). jeffrey smart - unpublished paintings 1940 - 2007. australian galleries. isbn 978-0-9751245-9-8. **+** pearce barry (2011). jeffrey smart. beagle press. isbn 978-0-646-55361-0. **+** pearce barry (2012). master of stillness: jeffrey smart paintings 1940 - 2011. wakefield press. isbn 978-1-74305-123-8. **+** jeffrey smart. canberra act: national gallery of australia. 2021. isbn 978-0-642-33495-4. oclc 1275391780 smart's work and life have been the subject of several documentaries the most recent titled master of stillness by filmmaker catherine hunter master of stillness records the creation of labyrinth (2011) smart's final work before retiring aged 91. critic john mcdonald calls it "a farewell picture - a last definitive statement that rules a line under a long and distinguished career". curator author and critic barry pearce interviewed in the film says of labyrinth_: "it is a kind of arrival at the painting ey was always chasing never satisfied hoping the next one on the easel would be the elusive masterpiece the one that said it all." hunter visited smart at ir farmhouse in tuscany and the painter took ir to some of the places near arezzo that have long inspired ir - the concrete streetscapes and urban wastelands that define ir vision. "if a good painting comes off it has a stillness it has a perfection and that's as great as anything that i think a musician or a poet can do" said smart # selected exhibitions the jeffrey smart retrospective exhibition curator edmund capon : 27 august 1999 - 6 august 2000 **+** art gallery of new south wales 27 august 1999 - 31 october 1999 **+** art gallery of south australia 26 november 1999 - 6 february 2000 **+** queensland art gallery 10 march 2000 - 21 may 2000 **+** heide museum of modern art 10 june 2000 - 6 august 2000 master of stillness jeffrey smart paintings 1940 - 2011 : curator barry pearce 12 october 2012 - 14 december 2012 **+** samstag museum<ref"exhibitions". anne & gordon samstag museum of art. retrieved 8 october 2025.`{{cite web}}`: cs1 maint: deprecated archival service (link)</ref> (unisa city west campus) - paintings from the period 1951 - 2011 10 october 2012 - end february 2013 **+** carrick hill - paintings and drawings from the period 1940 - 1951 (the period smart lived and worked in adelaide) 21 december 2012 - 31 march 2013 **+** tarrawarra museum of art jeffrey smart co-curator rebecca edwards **+** national gallery of australia 11 december 2021 to 15 may 2022 many of smart's paintings are in private collections. however ir works are also appear in a number of public collections including **+** carlo boatti collection milan italy **+** de beers collection of contemporary art london uk **+** metropolitan museum of art new york usa **+** thyssen-bornemisza collection lugano switzerland **+** yale university new haven usa **+** australian art galleries - act: national gallery of australia - nsw: agnsw new england newcastle - sa: agsa - wa: art gallery of western australia - vic: melbourne arts centre ballarat benella bendigo castlemaine national gallery of victoria tarrawarra warrnambool - nt: m&agnt - qld: qag rockhampton - tas: tasm&ag **+** australian universities: anu melbourne queensland unisa sydney **+** others - kerry stokes collection perth - national trust nsw - parliament house canberra act - reserve bank sydney nsw - royal perth hospital wa - wesfarmers collection perth # sales of smart's work **+** self portrait at papini's 1984 - 1985 85 cm × 115 cm sold at world record price of a$1,260,000 on 27 august 2014. **+** autobahn in the black forest ii 1979 - 80 (oil and synthetic polymer paint on canvas signed lower right: jeffrey smart 100 × 65 cm) sold for a record a$1,020,000 at auction by deutscher and hackett in melbourne on 20 april 2011. **+** "holiday 1971" (oil on canvas signed lower right jeffrey smart inscribed verso holiday 100 × 81 cm) sold at auction by menzies for a$960,000 in sydney on 24 june 2010 a list of sales of 670 of smart's work can be found at australian art sales digest jeffrey street in hawthorn south australia was named after smart by ir father who was involved in the sub-division of that area. in ir memoir not quite straight smart comments that there is a bend in jeffrey street and hence it too is "not quite straight" in 1951 smart was awarded the commonwealth jubilee art prize. ey was conferred the honorary title of doctor of the university by the university of sydney in 1999 and by the university of south australia in 2011 smart was appointed an officer of the order of australia in 2001 for ir service to the visual arts particularly through ir distinctive portrayal of the urban landscape and through the encouragement offered to young artists jeffrey smart was a patron and active supporter of the tait memorial trust in london a charity established by isla baring oam the daughter of sir frank tait of jc williamson's to support young australian performing artists in the uk following ir death the university of south australia announced on 21 june 2013 that the newest building at its city west campus to be opened in 2014 would be named the "jeffrey smart building" // republic of bob