Ed Smith was born in Naples, Italy, and raised on Cape Cod. He earned a BFA from the University of Massachusetts and an MFA from Brooklyn College, CUNY.
In 1979, Smith became the first crew member hired aboard the conservation ship Sea Shepherd, an experience that sparked a lifelong commitment to environmental issues, which continue to inform his work.
He moved to New York in 1985 and worked as an artist assistant to Mierle Laderman Ukeles, Vito Acconci, Tom Doyle, and Benny Andrews. He also held preparator roles at PS1 and The Clocktower Gallery. Smith later spent a decade at Queens College, CUNY, serving as Senior Studio Supervisor and Adjunct Lecturer before relocating to Baton Rouge to join the faculty at Louisiana State University.
Smith has had more than thirty solo exhibitions at venues including Spillman Blackwell Gallery (New Orleans), Dartmouth College, The Appleton Museum, The Cape Cod Museum of Art, The North Carolina Museum of Natural History, Sylvia Schmidt Gallery, Whitney Art Works, Foster Gallery at Queens College, and Soren Christensen Gallery, among others.
His work has also appeared in numerous group exhibitions and art fairs, such as the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, Palm Springs Art Fair, Stockholm Art Fair, Tulane University, the New Orleans Contemporary Art Center, Decorazon Gallery, Erdreich White Fine Art, Elaine Benson Gallery, Walter Anderson Museum, Lizan Tops Gallery, the Mobile Museum of Art, and PS1.
He has received multiple grants and awards, including an Individual Artist Fellowship from the Louisiana Division of the Arts. His work is held in both private and public collections. Smith is represented by Spillman Blackwell Gallery in New Orleans, Louisiana, and Erdreich White Fine Art in Boston, Massachusetts.
He currently serves as the Emogene Pliner Professor of Art at Louisiana State University and divides his time between Louisiana and Bridgton, Maine.
Ed Smith’s paintings captivate with their lush depiction of an apocalyptic or post-apocalyptic world. Or perhaps it’s just now. On his canvases birds hold their ground resolutely—despite their precarious perches in an environment gone colorfully wrong. Acid rain, acid clouds, acid sunsets provide cold comfort. Acutely aware of their dilemma, the birds glare at the sky, at each other, at the viewer, implicating us in their plight. Though these images evidence a naturalist’s eye, Smith is working his own angles on the man-made natural landscape of the 21st century. The birds of America are no longer the source of easy reveries, but in their mute survival they remain objects of wonder.
– Eric Etheridge, NYC
Ed Smith 