Jeffrey Smart Quotes about Art

Jeffrey Smart was a famous Australian painter and draughtsman. He is best known for his urban landscapes depicting our modern surroundings and how we exist in them. Famous Jeffrey Smart artworks include “Cahill Expressway”, “Matisse at Ashford”, “Portrait of Clive James”, “The Oil Drums”, “Portrait of David Malouf”, “Control Tower”, “The bicycle race (Death of Morandi)”, “Corrugated Gioconda”, “Joining the Ring Road” and “Central Station II”.

Mini biography: Born Frank Jeffrey Edson Smart on the 26th of July, 1921 in Adelaide, South Australia, Australia. His mother was Emmeline Mildred Edson and his father Francis Isaac Smart was a real estate agent. Jeffrey Smart was openly gay and lived with his partner Ermes De Zan. They were together from 1976 up until his death. The artist died on the 20th of June, 2013 in Montevarchi, Tuscany, Italy at the age of 91.

List of Famous Jeffrey Smart Art Quotes

I find it funny that perhaps in 100 years time, if people look at paintings done by the artists of this century, that the most ubiquitous things, like motor cars and television sets and telephones, don’t appear. We should paint the things around us. Jeffrey Smart

I always do a lot of preliminary drawings, moving the forms, the shadows, the buildings the figures around the canvas till I get that perfect composition. Jeffrey Smart

Sometimes I’ll drive around for months.. despair, nothing; then suddenly I’ll see something that seizes me; a shape, a combination of shapes, a play of light or shadows, and I send up a prayer because I know I have the germ of a picture. Jeffrey Smart

I like living in the 20th century – to me the world has never been more beautiful. I am trying to paint the real world I live in, as beautifully as I can with my own eyes. Jeffrey Smart

I came to live in Italy to worship at the altars of the greatest painters in the history of art. To measure my standards against them.. not to equal or surpass them. The prospect of coming anywhere near them would be utterly impossible. So in a way, I always felt doomed to fail. Jeffrey Smart

The truth is I put figures in mainly for scale. Jeffrey Smart

I really am a formal painter. I paint the visual world as I see it, the things I consider exciting and beautiful in our contemporary times. An artist should record his own time, in his own style, and I am recording today’s environment. Many argue that the modern world is increasingly ugly, but I take pleasure and excitement in modern things I see around me. Perhaps I’m trying to help people see the beauty in a gas tank, a road divider, a yellow truck. I paint buildings, factories, freeways, satellite dishes, because I like the definite forms and clean shapes. Jeffrey Smart

The subject matter is only the hinge that opens the door, the hook on which hangs a coat. My only concern is putting the right shapes in the right colors in the right places. It is always the geometry. Jeffrey Smart

Other people love driving fast cars, or making money, but if I don’t have a picture to paint, I feel miserable. The more I paint, the harder it gets, because I know more, and I’m tougher on myself. I love painting things that I consider beautiful. Jeffrey Smart

I find myself moved by man in his new violent environment. I want to paint this explicitly and beautifully … only very recently have artists again started to comment on their real surroundings. Jeffrey Smart

Art Quotes About Jeffrey Smart

People who know Smart’s art, but not the man, might expect to meet a dour, humorless fellow, with heavy-going conversation. Nothing could be further from the truth. He’s a complex personality, who exudes bonhomie, erudite wit (with a fondness for puns), energy and enthusiasm, but has a short fuse for boredom. Janet Hawley Quotes

Jeffrey Smart Self Portrait Painting

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Related or similar popular artists and celebrities include: John Brack, Margaret Olley, William Dobell, Brett Whiteley and other Famous Australian Artists.