Harold Smith Art Catalogue Spring 2017

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