ART SMITH (1917-1982)

Arthur George “Art” Smith was a leading modernist jeweler of the mid-twentieth century and one of the few Afro-Caribbean individuals to achieve international recognition in the field. Born in Cuba in 1917 to Jamaican parents, Smith moved to New York City at three. He was educated at Cooper Union and worked with Winifred Mason, an African American jeweler with Caribbean ties. Influenced by surrealism, primitivism, Alexander Calder, and the avant-garde dance scene, Smith’s large, dynamic pieces were available for sale through his Greenwich Village shop.

Smith was a contemporary and friend to figures in New York City’s jazz, modern dance, and social justice arenas, including James Baldwin, Lena Horne, and Eartha Kitt. His work appeared in Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar and was exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Crafts (now the Museum of Arts and Design). Posthumously, his work was celebrated in a Brooklyn Museum exhibition and is held in the permanent collections of the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Boston Museum of Fine Arts.