Gore Bay

Sydney Ure Smith (1887-1949) was influential in promoting Australian art to a broader public during the first half of the twentieth century. In 1906 he founded the advertising company of Smith and Julius, incorporating quality art and design with technically advanced printing. He then founded the periodicals <em>Art in Australia</em> (1916) and <em>Home</em> (1920) and established the publishing company Ure Smith Pty Ltd in 1934, producing numerous texts of key significance to Australian art. President of the Society of Artists 1921-48, trustee of the Art Gallery of New South Wales 1927-47, patron of many artists, and active in numerous positions of influence, he was himself a competent practising artist and a key figure in Australia's version of the Etching Revival. He studied at the Julian Ashton School of Art (1902-07), and continued to be active until the mid-1920s. 

This etching/aquatint underlines Ure Smith's very real competence as a practitioner; it is a moodily evocative depiction using sharp chiaroscuro of Gore Bay, in Sydney Harbour, with sailing ships in dry dock.

See: Art Gallery of New South Wales, 'Sydney Ure Smith OBE... W.B. McInnes', https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/works/976/

Dr Mark Stocker   Curator, Historical International Art   May 2018