Smith worked as a portrait painter, a lithographer and an illustrator over the course of his career. He also helped create war bond posters during World War II. He traveled to Europe as an artist/war correspondent to make paintings and drawings on naval aviation; later, he spent six months in England and Normandy gathering material on the Army Medical Corps and witnessed the D-Day landings in Normandy. Here, he dwarfs the love and sexuality of three couples in the foreground with the larger backdrop of war, represented by a poster in the background.