A painter of modern life, she observes, studies and defines. Her paintings reveal a world with which she has an intimate familiarity, whether a robust floral display, a huddle of impatient horses, a windswept view of the Mediterranean, a cocktail party, or the elegant profile of a young woman. She explores the real, the contemporary, fulfilling the challege to her nineteenth century Realist predecessors: Il faut être de son temps.

Although Smith is a painter of modern life and a painter of her time, the works are undeniably and emphatically informed by the great artistic traditions of the past. She knows them well. The references to these antecedents are in dazzling evidence in her still-life paintings. She draws from numerous sources, some of which may seem polar opposites. She delights in rich patterns, exotic containers, lavish reflections, and an almost overwhelming abundance of lush flowers. Yet she contains them in a controlled space and through precise definition reminiscent of the opulent still-lifes of the seventeenth century. Conversely, in some floral pieces she denies the reality of space, condensing, rearranging and inventing. Smith abandons firm boundaries applying rich tonalities with a loaded brush. The shapes that emerge are generalized yet vibrant creations, presented as if in a state of metamorphosis.

The love of nature so evident in her still-life paintings finds formidable expression in Smith's landscapes. Driven by intellectual and artistic curiosity and assisted by extensive travel, she has acquired and stored a wealth of images. They are then transformed. Yet, they are not denials of external reality. Rather, the artist is constantly modifying. Smith makes adjustments to achieve coherence and unity and most of all to express what she considers the essence of the scene. It is apparent in her landscapes that she rejects the concept of artist as simply replicating to provide mirror images of reality.

In Grande Hotel, Saint-Jean Cap-Ferrat, the curved balustrade which dominates the foreground, echoes the horizontal line of water and sky. It encloses the scene and serves to produce compositional unity, while firmly delineating the pictorial space. The curved flowing clouds provide counterbalance and subtly direct attention to the grove of trees, then to the foreground, and finally to the viewer's own space. This rhythmic compositional play encourages a gradual yet thoughtful involvement that is not immediatel anticipated. The mood that permeates is one of restraint and tranquility. It is reiterated throughout by the repetition of curved and horizontal shapes and the dominance of blue-grey tonalities.

The formal, classicizing character of Grande Hotel, Saint-Jean Cap-Ferrat finds its opposite in Isle of Harris walk. Viewed from a low vantage point, the scene conveys informality. It evokes the intimacy of Daubigny's rural scenes and the spontaneity of Monet's early landscape paintings. Like them, Smith eliminates any separation between her world and ours. There is an immediate and effortless movement into the space. There are no formal architectural barriers. The viewer joins in the artist's celebration of this rugged scene of undulating road that seems to disappear into the great distance of immense sky and constantly moving, unpredictable grey clouds. It is a landscape in constant flux, momentary and atmospheric. Just as her swift, spontaneous brush strokes only suggest and intimate precise appearance, so the artist dictates no uniformity of response. The scene speaks a varied language in tones meaningful to every lover of nature's changing moods.

Smith abandons any implication of tranquility in her paintings of the horse race. In Jockeys II we are swept up in dramatic and rapid motion of man and horse.The jockeys lean forward, their bodies tense, straining to maintain the gruelling but crucial posture. Their knees dig deeply, aggressively, into the horses flesh to unite the two in a common pursuit. The viewpoint is unexpectedly well below the scence, which is contained in a narrow horizontal space. The format intensifies the dramatic quality of the event. An abrupt diagonal line brings the viewer rapidly into the composition. The artist loosely defines two figures and only suggests the other riders with thick strokes of varied pink tones. Their forms rapidly recede into a deliberately limited space. There is a constant reiteration of emotional intensity and dramatic action, even in the repetition of the diagonal lines of the bridles and reins. They too, direct us to the background, and then, almost explosively, back to the jockey in the foreground. The pinks and whites which give his form identity initiate the iteration of pulsating movement and emotion that permeates the painting.

In the tradition of past masters, Smith moves effortlessly to explore, through portraiture, a more intimate world. In Paisley Shawl she achieves a stylistic reconciliation. The model's pose and its implied decorativeness are reminiscent of Ingres' portraits of mid-nineteenth century French society. But, Smith does not accede to Ingres' smooth, polished surfaces and tight linear definition. She builds up her tones, leaving full evidence of her painterly process. She does not articulate the details of the patterns of vibrant reds of the paisley shawl. The details are concealed in an intricate tapestry of colour. In these passages Smith indulges in abstraction, perhaps intimating that our intuitive response is to the psychological impact of colour and shape. Throughout the painting the artist provides the circumstances through which she can elicit the viewer's response. The curved lines and warm lush tones that punctuate the shawl are repeated in the simple backdrop. The cool green colours of the skirt are echoed by the plant, whose branches reiterate the pose of the sitter. The work is at once a portrait, conveying external likeness and revealing personality and an aesthetically satisfying design painting. In Karen's hat, Smith more fully presents one particular aspect of her art, an exploration of which only seems to begin in Paisley shawl. With a startling economy of means she presents a portrait that emphatically focuses on surface and abstraction.

Smith no longer employs the traditional three-planes to produce an illusion of depth on the flat canvas surface. She does not indicate a specific setting, a context for the sitter, only a simple grey-green backdrop. The slight darkening of the left side affords balance and anchors the seated profile figure. The painting is a repetition of severe and simple shapes, each one interlocked with the next. The hat provides the final horizontal accent first initiated by the line of the skirt. This stark minimalist canvas of shapes and colours is evocative. The specific identity of the sitter is not a concern. It is her state of mind, her inner being with whom the viewer is invited to empathize and perhaps share a moment of reverie. The lack of specificity and detail and the artist's reluctance to suggest a greater definition of externals challenges the imagination. In the final analysis the identity of the sitter is abandoned, viewer and model become one. They are bound together in a universal contemplation.

Throughout her work, Smith defines our external modern world. In this she fulfills an essential mission of the Realist artist. But she also succeeds on a level that is easily elusive. possessing what Kandinsky identified as the artist's spiritual insight, she unfolds before the viewer an inner, timeless reality which informs and enriches.

Lilien F. Robinson
Professor of Art History
George Washington University