Pacific Rim #1

Gordon Smith (b. 1919 - 2020)

Gordon Appelbe Smith was a pioneering abstract painter on the west coast of Canada, a foundational figure in the Canadian Modernist movement. Born in England in 1919, Smith spent the vast majority of his life in Canada. Following WW II, Smith studied art at UBC where he met his mentor, Lawren Harris. In 1951 Smith embraced Abstract Expressionism while enrolled at the California School of Fine Arts, where he discovered the Bay Area school of abstract painters, including Richard Diebenkorn.

Smith exhibited his work widely throughout Canada and abroad. Along with painting, he pursued a career in teaching at the University of British Columbia. He is noted for his experimental colour field paintings, and later, for his less restrained, more expressive abstract paintings inspired by visits to Haida Gwaii that he made after retiring from teaching. During his lifetime, Gordon Smith accumulated numerous awards and accolades, including honorary doctorates from UBC and the Emily Carr University, the Order of Canada in 1996, the Order of British Columbia in 2000, the Audain Prize in 2007 and the Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts in 2009. He worked prolifically up until he turned 100.