Sheldon Gallery to Exhibit Works Wallace Herndon Smith 6/4 - 8/21

The Sheldon Art Galleries presents Wallace HernDon Smith, June 4 - August 21, 2010, in the Bellwether Gallery of St. Louis Artists. Join us for an opening reception on Friday, June 4, 2010, from 5 - 7 p.m.! Also opening on June 4: Scott Raffe: Circus Flora; Jay Wolke: Architecture of Resignation; and Erik Spehn: Tape Drawings. Gallery hours are Tuesdays, Noon - 8 p.m.; Wednesdays - Fridays, Noon - 5 p.m.; Saturdays, 10 a.m. - 2 p.m. and one hour prior to Sheldon performances and during intermission.

The exhibition features paintings by St. Louis artist Wallace HernDon Smith. Born in St. Louis in 1901, Wallace Smith was a traditional painter who absorbed the visual language of artists like Pierre Bonnard, Henri Matisse, and Edward Hopper. Smith was fluent in many subjects including still-lifes, landscapes, interiors, and portraits. The artist's strength was in capturing psychological nuances, and the exhibit has been selected to illuminate this area of his work. The exhibition is organized by the Sheldon Art Galleries and is drawn from the collection of the Bellwether Foundation.

From an early age, Smith showed interest in artistic endeavors. At Princeton University , where he studied architecture in the early 1920s, he joined the campus theatrical organization, the Triangle CluB. Smith turned to painting after he met and married his wife, Kelse, who encouraged his artistic growth throughout his life.

In 1927, the couple moved to Paris , where for a year he studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. Many of the watercolors on view are from this period. In 1928, he returned to St. Louis and enrolled in Washington University 's architectural program, studying with Louis LaBeaume. There he designed several homes, but painting remained the focus of his attention. In 1932, Smith and his wife Kelse moved to New York and became a part of the art community which included Peggy Bacon, Walt Kuhn and Edward Hopper, who recommended one of his paintings for a prize in an exhibition in Philadelphia . Smith's paintings of landscapes and street scenes from this period and later reflect Hopper's influence. In the late 1930s, Smith's work gained attention and was included in exhibitions in New York galleries and at the Museum of Modern Art . During these early days, his work was characterized by its affinity to American Regionalism and his portraits were highly finished, quiet examinations of his subjects.

Smith's work continued to gain maturity, and from the 1960s to the end of his life was characterized by loose brushwork and less formal compositions. He studied physiognomy, color theory, and composition, creating colorful, spontaneous renderings of friends, family, models and places he visited on his travels. His works illustrate a keen sensitivity to the psychological resonance of gesture, color and form. Always inquisitive and passionate about painting, Smith left behind a substantial body of work that reveals the artist's visual intelligence. His friend, the artist Peggy Bacon, whose portrait is in the exhibition, wrote: "His pictures themselves are like him in their lack of flourish. They are sensitive and economical, subtly subdued in color, restrained in their rejection of the stylized, and make no attempt at the dashing effect... the canvases have structure and atmosphere and a very persuasive tonal quality; and once observed, they shine like an Open Window."

The not-for-profit Sheldon Art Galleries exhibits works by local, national, and International Artists in all media. Over 6,000 square feet of the galleries' spaces on the 2nd floor are permanently devoted to rotating exhibits of photography, architecture, jazz art and history, and children's art. A sculpture garden, seen from both the atrium lobby and the connecting glass bridge, features periodic rotations and installations, and the Nancy Spirtas Kranzberg Gallery on the lower level features art of all media. The Sheldon actively supports the work of St. Louis artists in all mediums and features a dedicatEd Gallery with museum-quality exhibits by St. Louis artists, past and present.

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