Richard Smith CBE (1931-2016)

British printmaker and painter who moved to live in New York in 1976.  He attended St Albans School of Art followed by the Royal College of Art, from 1954 to 1957. In 1959 he was awarded a prestigious Harkness Fellowship to study in New York.  Whilst there his work became more minimal, often painting in just one colour with a second colour used only as an accent. In his printmaking he introduced cut out, folded or stapled elements.  He held his first one-man show at the Green Gallery, New York, in 1961. In 1970 he was the British representative at the Venice Biennale and in 1975 a retrospective exhibition of his work was exhibited at the Tate in London.