Smart, Jeffrey (1921-2013), an Australian artist, became known for his precisely realistic images of urban landscapes. The best-known Smart paintings portray lonely urban views that have a vaguely menacing feeling. His paintings include scenes of high-rise buildings, freeways, street signs, trucks, and oil drums. Often Smart incorporated anonymous human figures who appear lost, creating a haunting impression of silent anguish. Gloomy, smog-filled skies hover over his landscapes. Smart used modern acrylic paints to produce the bold, flat colors and precise, geometric forms typical of his style.
Smart settled in Italy in 1964, using imagery of Italian speedways, highways, bridges, viaducts, and concrete walls set among wheat fields or green grass under brooding skies. However, there is no sense of a particular place in his scenes. Some critics have stated that Smart’s paintings are a commentary on modern urban alienation. But Smart denied there is any social criticism in his pictures. In describing his style he said, “The subject matter is only the hinge that opens the door.…My only concern is putting the right shapes in the right color in the right places. It is always the geometry.”
Frank Jeffrey Edson Smart was born on July 26, 1921, in Adelaide, South Australia. He lived in Sydney from 1951 to 1962, serving as art critic for the Daily Telegraph from 1952 to 1954 and as a drawing teacher at the National Art School from 1956 to 1962. He also worked in Australian children’s radio and television before settling permanently in Italy. Smart died on June 21, 2013.
