藝術家Jules André SMITH (1880-1959) 生平簡歷

出生地： Hong Kong

死亡地点： Maitland, FL

地址： Maitland, FL/Stony Creek, CT

职业： Painter, etcher, teacher, writer, sculptor, architect, illustrator

教育： Cornell Univ. (B.S. in Arch., 1902; M.S. In Arch., 1904 )

展出： Pan-Pacific Expo, San Francisco, 1915 (gold for etching); AIC, 1915; Cornell Univ. Mus. Art, 1968 (retrospective); Falk Gal., Madison, CT, 1998

会员： SAE.

工作： LOC; MMA; BMFA; BMA; Honolulu Acad. Art; New Britain Museum of Am Art; A.D. White MA, Cornell Univ.; large collection at Maitland Art Center.

评论： Within a few years of earning degrees in architecture, AndrÈ Smith he gave up the practice to pursue painting and etching in France. When World War I broke out, he was the first of eight official artists selected by the army to record battle scenes at the front. Immediately after the war, his drawings were published as a book, In France with the American Expeditionary Forces (NY: A. Hahlo Pub, 1919). Upon his return to America, he settled in Stony Creek, Conn. Smith returned to France ó particularly the southern region ó every year through 1934. He became highly regarded as a master etcher, and his name was often associated with those of his contemporaries ó Joseph Pennell, Muirhead Bone, and Edmund Blampied ó whose works also reflected the influence of Whistler. However, as early as 1912 Smith also made many bold modernist works ó and this dual artistic pursuit continued throughout his life. Despite a war injury that led to the amputation of his leg, he continued his painting excursions in France. In 1936, he found a patroness in Mary Curtis Bok Zimbalist, heir to the Curtis Publishing fortune. She also commissioned him to design and build a major art studio and complex in Maitland, Florida that he called the Research Studio Art Center. Today, the buildings that comprise this artists" colony rank as one of the nation"s most important examples of "fantastic architecture," inspired by the ancient native cultures of Central America. Now called the Maitland Art Center, the complex houses the bulk of AndrÈ Smith"s art collection, including the works of many of the artists he attracted to take sabbaticals there. From 1936-59, fifty or more artists were attracted to Smith"s retreat. Among them were Milton Avery, Charles Prendergast, Ralston Crawford, David Burliuk, Arnold Blanch, Doris Lee, George Marinko, and many others. During the late 1930s, Smith was a pioneer in surrealism, and published Art and the Sunconscious (Maitland, FL: Research Studio, 1937).

来源： WW47; WW59; Fine Prints of the Year, 1931