During this period Vincent Smith was an artist who pursued social inquiry that articulated African-American identity. Along with contemporaries such as his close friend Jacob Lawrence, Smith used the communicative medium of painting in a direct, raw, colorful and narrative style to represent contemporary social issues, such as police brutality and political struggles. A parallel path in Smith’s work investigates a more quotidian experience such as everyday New York street life, which served as a fertile source of inspiration. Typically the rich details of placards on stores and buildings, the assembled people and their humanity mirror the ethos of the time.

In drawings like The Murder of Fred Hampton Smith portrayed the assassinated Black Panther Party leader. The body of Hampton lies at the bottom of the composition amid bullet holes and sanguine splashes, with the specifics of the scene roughly drawn in – the spontaneity of the drawing creating an emotional charge.

Smith was born in New York in 1929 and died in 2004. In the 1950s he studied at the Art Students League, the Brooklyn Museum Art School and the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. On the occasion of the gallery’s 2003 exhibition of Smith’s work Holland Cotter wrote that a persuasive case can be made “for the inclusion of his best work in any serious account of postwar 20th century American art.”

This show may be previewed at www.alexandregallery.com.

Forthcoming Exhibitions:
Loren MacIver:Selected Work, February 5 through March 19;
Adele Alsop: New Paintings and an Installation, March 24 through April 30; and
Emily Nelligan and Marvin Bileck: Island Views, May 5 through June 17.

For further information contact Ellen Robinson at 212.755.2828 or ellen@alexandregallery.com.