Richard Smith Triptych, 1965

Richard Smith (1931-2016) was one of the most influential artists of his generation. After studying in the 1950s at the Royal College of Art alongside artists such as Peter Blake and Robyn Denny, Smith stood apart from the burgeoning Pop Art movement of the 1960s by melding the slick and vibrant imagery found in the commercial landscape with an expansive abstract painting language very much his own. He gained critical acclaim for extending the boundaries of painting into three dimensions, using gravity as a medium to create sculptural shaped canvases with monumental presence, which literally protruded into the space of the viewer. 

Representing Britain at the 1970 Venice Biennial, Smith continued to explore abstraction, colour and form throughout a transatlantic career, with a 1975 retrospective at the Tate and inclusion in collections of the British Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.