Flowers Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition of British painter Richard Smith’s most recent works. His career spans over six decades and his paintings still continue to challenge traditional categories, melding Pop Art and Abstraction. The exhibition will run from May 17th through June 15th, 2013, with an opening reception for the artist on Thursday, May 16th, 2013 from 6-8pm.

Richard Smith was born in Hertfordshire in 1931 and studied at the Royal College of Art in London. In 1959 Smith moved to New York City on a Harkness Fellowship, and his early works reference the vivacious energy of American advertising and consumer culture. Throughout the 1960s and into the early 1970s, Smith experimented with the structure of stretched canvas by building large-scale frames that expanded into three dimensions. Smith exhibited as the official British artist at the 1970 Venice Biennale and then took his work in a new direction, this time taking the canvas off its wooden stretchers and adding aluminum rods at tilted axes to create a layered effect. Smith hung strings, often tied in knots, from the edges of these pieces and they became known as his “kite” paintings.

Today his work is minimal and more contained. Rather than testing the boundaries of the canvas with three dimensional pieces, Smith now has turned this exploration inward—creating painted frames within the plane of the canvas. This latest collection of works maintains Smith’s iconic vibrancy and high-key color, but comes to a place of serenity.

Richard Smith ’s work is included in many public and private collections including The Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; The Hirschhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington DC; The Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia; The Tate Gallery, London, The British Council Collection, London; The Victoria and Albert Museum, London; and the Walker Art Center in both Liverpool and Minneapolis. Smith has had numerous solo exhibitions and participated in many group shows throughout his career. In May of 2013, Smith’s painting titled “Piano” (1963) will be included as part of Tate Britain’s rehang of 400 works spanning from 1550 to present day. Richard Smith lives and works on Long Island, New York.