Harold Smith Art
About: I am an artist working primarily in acrylics and mixed media (though I do oil occasionally). My work is influenced by the jazz and the jazz dynamic in life. I live and work in the Kansas City area. My work has been collected worldwide and I have exhibited in France, New York, Newport, San Francisco, College Park (MD), and of course Kansas City. I also write and make films.
Monkisms 48” x 36” Mixed Media on Canvas 2016
Men of Color 36” x 48” Mixed Media on Canvas 2016
Bird 36 x 24 Mixed Media on Canvas 2014
Marvin Gaye 36 x 24 Mixed Media on Canvas 2014
Bessie Smith 30 x 24 Mixed Media on Canvas 2014
Baldwin 36 x 24 Mixed Media on Canvas 2013
Jazzstract 30 x 22 Mixed Media on Paper 2011
Bluesman 48” x 36” Mixed Media on Canvas 2016 NO LONGER AVAILABLE
Big Horn / 4 Little Girls 60 x 48 Mixed Media on Canvas 2010
Decluterization A 24” x 48” Mixed Media on Canvas 2016
Big Duet 48” x 36” Mixed Media on Canvas 2016
Temptation 24 x 18 Mixed Media on Canvas 2011
Untitled—Man of Color 24 x 18 Mixed Media on Canvas 2010
Modern Trumpet 30 x 48 Mixed Media on Canvas 2011
Black Manhood II 22 x 30 Mixed Media on Paper 2010
Mississippi Blues 24 x 18 Mixed Media on Paper 2012
Untitled—Man of Color 24 x 18 Mixed Media on Canvas 2011
Blues Cry 24 x 18 Mixed Media on Canvas 2012
Abstract Horn 40 x 30 Mixed Media on Canvas Panel 2012
Monkology 36 x 48 Mixed Media on Canvas 2011
Song of Solomon 40 x 30 Mixed Media on Canvas 2016
Us 24 x 18 Mixed Media on Canvas 2012
The Story 48 x 24 Mixed Media on Canvas 2016
Blues Life 24 x 36 Mixed Media on Canvas 2014
Drinkers 24 x 36 Mixed Media on Canvas 2014
Blues Life II 24 x 36 Mixed Media on Canvas 2014
Bluesman II Mixed Media on Canvas 38 x 31 2014
Howlin’ Wolf 30 x 24 Mixed Media on Canvas 2014
Man of Color 24 x 18 Mixed Media on Canvas 2015
Man of Color 36 x 24 Mixed Media on Canvas Panel 2014
Self Portrait 30 x 22 Mixed Media on Paper 2014
Abstract Horn 24 x 18 Mixed Media on Canvas 2011
Jazz Singer 36 x 24 Mixed Media on Canvas 2014
Jazz Singer 30 x 24 Mixed Media on Canvas 2014
Abstract Horn 40 x 30 Mixed Media on Canvas Panel 2014
Marvin Gaye 36 x 24 Mixed Media on Canvas 2014
BluesMan 24 x 18 Mixed Media on Paper 2012
Man of Color 24 x 18 Mixed Media on Paper 2013
Tribal Bass 30 x 234 Mixed Media on Canvas 2012
Man of Color 24 x 18 Mixed Media on Paper 2012
Horn—1969 36 x 24 Mixed Media on Canvas 2012
Blues Horn 30 x 24 Mixed Media on Canvas 2012
Fluid Horn 48” x 36” Mixed Media on Canvas 2011
Modern Bass 40 x 30 Mixed Media on Canvas 2011
Man of Color 40 x 30 Mixed Media on Canvas 2011
Camelot Blues 40 x 30 Mixed Media on Canvas 2012
Monkisms 48” x 36” Mixed Media on Canvas 2016
Testament 48 x 36 Mixed Media on Canvas 2011
Man of Color 40 x 30 Mixed Media on Canvas 2010
Harlem Renaissance 30 x 40 Mixed Media on Canvas 2012
Progress 36 x 24 Mixed Media on Canvas 2011
A Blues for Ossie and Ruby 24 x 36 Mixed Media on Canvas 2012
Man of Color 24 x 18 Mixed Media on Canvas 2011
OKKKupy 24 x 18 Mixed Media on Canvas 2011
Fish for Lent 24 x 18 Mixed Media on Canvas 2011
Monk Study 24 x 18 Mixed Media on Canvas 2011
Man of Color 24 x 18 Mixed Media on Canvas 2012
Her 24 x 18 Mixed Media on Canvas 2006
Selected Exhibitions 2017 — “Reflections of Monk III, Wilmer Jennings Gallery at Kenkeleba, New York, (Group) 2016 — “Bear Witness”, Johnson County Public Library, Shawnee Mission, (Group) 2016 — “Reflecting The Times, Box Gallery, Kansas City (Group) 2016 — "INSPIRED: 20 Years of African American Art" , Stella Jones Gallery, New Orleans, (Group)
2015 - “Vernissage de «Portraits» de Harold Smith ”, Le Moulin du logis, Angouleme—France 2014 - “Colors of Life”, Cognac Blues Passions, Cognac, France 2013 - “Convergence : Jazz and the Visual Arts”, University of Maryland, David Driskell Center (Travelling Group Exhibition) 2012 - “Reflections of Monk”, Wilmer Jennings Gallery at Kenkeleba, New York, (Group)
2011 - “Colors of Jazz”, American Jazz Museum, Kansas City 2009 - “Untitled”, Faso Gallery, Kansas City, (Group) 2008 - “Future Primitive Jazz”, Montanaro Gallery, Rhode Island, Group 2007 - “Plantation Lullabies”, Nobis Gallery, Newark (Group) 2006 - Tribal Masks And Jazzstracts, 2001 — Kansas City, KS Public Library
Montanaro Gallery, Rhode
Acquisition Information For online acquisitions, I accept Paypal and checks/money orders. For art acquired in person, I also accept check/money order/ cash. Art purchased by check/money order will be shipped once the payment clears.
Art may be returned within 7 days of receipt. For art shipped, I allow another 2 days for travel. There is no restocking fee.
Prices for March 2017 — July 2017 Dimensions
Price/Shipping*
9 x 12
$100 / 10
20 x 20
$400 / 20
18 x 24
$450 / 25
24 x 24
$600 / 30
22 x 30
$675 / 30
24 x 30
$750 / 35
24 x 36
$900 / 40
24 x 48
$1,100 / 50
30 x 40
$1,200 / 75
36 x 36
$1,300 / 100
36 x 48
$1,700 / 150
48 x 60
$2,900 / Pickup
48 x 72
$3,500 / Pickup
60 x 72
$4,500 / Pickup
* Prices subject to adjustment.
Artwork This catalogue contains a sampling of available works. There is more work available in my home studio. You can visit by appointment.
Commissions I do accept commissions. 50% of the commission fee is due before work begins. This 50% is non-refundable. The other 50% is due when the work is completed. Please inquire for pricing.
Films The Gospel According to Glenn North 2017 52:37
Bouncer 2012 1:20
Natasha : Portrait of an Urban Poet 2011 1:40
Writings
Coffeehouse Theology 2006 http://www.haroldsmithart.com/16449926-Coffeehouse-Theology
Descent 2004 http://www.haroldsmithart.com/descentaug52003.pdf
Jazz begins with the blues – not just the bent notes and field hollers, but the colors themselves. Blue is the primary visual motif of traditional Black music, from Ma Rainey and Leadbelly to Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, and John Coltrane. Just think of the titles: Good Morning Blues. Mood Indigo. Kind of Blue. Blue Note, Blue Train, Blue Monk; a multitude of aural experiences rendered in vivid, ecstatic color. But blue isn’t the only color of jazz. Listen closely, and you’ll see a world saturated with innumerable shades and hues. There are the red lights of Storyville, where Louis first heard the sound he would come to define; the “Black-and-Tans” of Harlem where races mixed and Duke practiced his own musical alchemy; the green and yellow basket Ella swung at the Apollo. Not all of the colors are bright, of course. Bird is only the most famous example of an artist whose taste for “brown sugar” and her white cousins led to an early grave; and the very real horrors of racism, immortalized in Billie’s “Strange Fruit,” are as dark – literally and figuratively – as they come. But this, too, makes a kind of sense. How else to represent the history of a people that has been defined more than any other by color, if not with color itself? Or, in the words of Andy Razaf and Fats Waller, “What Did I Do to Be So Black and Blue?” Black and Blue take on a special significance in the work of Harold Smith. His paintings certainly represent Black experiences, but they do so with very little use of the shade of black itself. More often than not, blue takes black’s place as the shadow, the base or background. This is not without implication. In science, Black is defined as the absence of color: a void where no light is reflected, against which other colors inevitably take precedence. But the subjects of Smith’s work are anything but a void. Just as Black music expresses a range of moods far richer than mere darkness and despair, Smith represents Black lives as awash in color: blues, yes, but also reds, browns, yellows, greens, and purples. These are expressions of a cultural tradition that is vibrant precisely because of its diversity – because of its color. As such, color is both celebrated and transcended. There is as much of Matisse here as of Africa, and vice versa. And the range of colors expressed is as broad and diverse as the sum total of American life and American music. We at the American Jazz Museum are thrilled to be a part of this exhibit, this celebration of our shared cultural spectrum: from Bearden to Basquiat, from Bebop to Hip-Hop; reaching forward not just to the Monks and the Coltranes, but also to the Herbie Hancocks, the Bobby Watsons, the Terence Blanchards and Joshua Redmans, the J Dillas and Jay-Zs and Bilals and Janelle Monaés. And so we have endeavored to represent as many facets of that spectrum as possible, through a synaesthetic intersection of still paintings, moving images, and written poetry. But whether you’re seeing it, hearing it or reading it, ultimately, it’s all color. These are the Colors of Jazz, and they’re ours.
Zachary Hoskins American Jazz Museum March 2011