Draft:J Edward Smith

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John Edward Smith (1905–1986) was an English artist.

Early life

John Edward "Ted" Smith was born in Carlisle, England on 30 December 1905. He was the third eldest of a family of five children, and although he won a scholarship to grammar school, he was not allowed to take it up because his working-class parents thought that grammar school was above his station.

At a young age he liked to draw and paint, and on leaving school, he was taught art firstly at the Carlisle School of Art. He then studied for two years at the Edinburgh College of Art, followed by the Regent Street Polytechnic, London and finally at the Bradford College of Art. In Bradford he joined a tennis club where he met his future wife, Freda Buckley.

Career

His first job was as a fabric designer with Morton Sundour Fabrics Ltd, Carlisle, but in 1935, two years after marrying his wife, he moved to Kidderminster in Worcestershire and joined Carpet Trades Ltd as a carpet designer. A few years later that career was cut short by the start of the second World War when the carpet industry was more or less shut down.

However, later, in the 1950’s, he did a number of free-lance carpet designs – see later.

He remained with Albright and Wilson for the rest of his working life but still spent much of his spare time sketching and painting, particularly after retiring.

World War II

Smith was too old to be drafted, so he joined Albright and Wilson Ltd at Oldbury, Worcestershire, which made phosphorus for incendiaries and other products for the war effort. He worked as a draftsman in the Research Engineers’ Department.

During the war, he was an air raid warden, but never saw any action.

During those years, he usually travelled from his home to work by train and spent much of his journeys sketching the people around him in the train carriages. These included servicemen and women, plus ordinary people who used the train to get to work.

During the war he painted the occasional landscape, but he also created a number of paintings of elegant ladies in period costume and elaborate wigs/hair. The upper body were painted in watercolours, but the lower dress was created using pre-war coloured silver foil chocolate papers. He would also cut out the arms to that they could be overlaid against the skirts. All were sold or given away.

Media and styles

He worked with many media over his artistic career: watercolours, oils, pastels, pen and ink, pencil, charcoal sketches, etchings and linocuts. He covered various subjects - streetscapes, particularly of the half-timbered Tudor style houses of Worcestershire, England and the pale stone houses of the Cotswolds, landscapes, portraits, marine scenes and boats, still life and even many commissions such as pictures of houses, a brace of mallards in oils on a five-foot wide marsh scene on one occasion, and an old steam locomotive too. He also liked painting horses, particularly Clydesdales and Shires.

His style of painting in oils was akin to that of watercolours, his main medium.

He emulated many previous artists in that he would often make a rough sketch of paintings to be satisfied with a composition before starting the final painting. If not a pencil drawing on tracing paper, Ted would use either watercolours or poster paints to achieve the effect that he was happy with. Making such a rough had the added benefit by enabling him to make more than one copy of the same subject by request, but he would always ensure that there were points of difference between copies.

Post-war career

Whilst his art was limited during the war, he subsequently spent a number of years when portrait painting was his passion. One of those, a painting of a seated old man with a face full of character was exhibited at the Royal Society of Portrait Painters, London during the late 1940's2. He sold or gave it to the family of the man.

He drew many portraits of the casts of plays presented by the Kidderminster Repertory Company for advertising purposes, and later took on other portrait commissions until one unfortunate incident in the 1960's. He accepted a commission from a lady in her later years and produced an absolute likeness. However, it was too lifelike and the lady in question did not see herself with all her wrinkles and other defects. That resulted in a big row after which Ted refused to paint any more portraits, and nor did he. In retrospect he was able to see the funny side.

He did, however, take many commissions. He painted the King Edward the Sixth School in Lower High Street, Stourbridge, W Charles Baile de Larerrière orcestershire for the Old Edwardian Club. He was commissioned to do paintings of people's houses and farms, usually in watercolours. One such painting resulted in another amusing incident. Ted decided that the best angle to paint one house was from the bottom of the driveway. However, there was a large tree in the way, but using artistic license he painted the house as though the tree was not there. When he presented the finished painting the owners were so impressed with the view without the tree, a week later they had the tree removed.

In the 1980s he painted quite a number of scenes depicting Thames barges, oyster boats and other marine scenes. Such paintings, with others, were exhibited at St Catherine's Dock, London from where they went all over the world.

A photograph of one watercolour depicting fishing boats in Honfleur, France was depicted in the book "20th Century British Marine Painting "[6]

Societies

He was on the committee of the Birmingham Watercolour Society for a number of years until his move to Australia, and was Vice-president of the Kidderminster Art Society.[8] It is believed that he was also on the committee of the Toowoomba Art Society

Exhibitions

During his years in the UK, his work was shown in many exhibitions around England and Wales, including a number of two- and three-man exhibitions, generally with his long term artist friend Jack Mellor.

He had paintings chosen for exhibition in 1947 and 1948 at the Royal Society of Portrait Painters. The 1948 painting was also selected for exhibiting around the various provincial centres[2]. He also had paintings chosen for exhibition The Royal Society of Marine Artists in 1975 (1 painting), 1976 (2 paintings), and 1977 (2 paintings).

Other exhibitions were at the Welsh Academy (not the same organisation as today), the art societies of Kidderminster and Birmingham in England, and later with the art society of Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia plus many other locations. Many of his paintings were sold at St Catherine's Dock, London from where they went all over the world. Whilst living in Australia, his paintings sold from Creative 92 gallery in Toowoomba, and a gallery in Montville on the Sunshine Coast.

Move to Australia

Ted moved to Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia in 1982 to follow family, but he was never able to come to terms with the vastness and colours of Australia after the compact rapidly changing and colourful scenery in the UK[8]. As a result, he painted many later works from colour slides that he photographed during his travels in Britain.

Interestingly, whilst looking for a house to live in in Toowoomba, he was surprised to see a carpet that he had designed some time previously in the 1950’s or 1960’s as a free-lance designer for an Australian carpet company.

His last three works were watercolours of Scottish fishing boats, one of which he presented to his son as a gift rather than on loan which had always been the case previously. Two days later he died. It must have been his final present to his son.

On hearing of the death, a Toowoomba resident who had seen the other two pictures of the fishing boats for sale at a Toowoomba gallery, quickly went and purchased both.

Other pursuits

He played the piano and violin. He was a keen golfer, a fisherman, and a keen contract bridge player but did not advance beyond a local master with the latter. In his early years he had a passion for photography and won a cash prize for one photograph. He was also very creative and inventive. Immediately following the war, he designed and built props and sets for “The Busybodies” who produced two annual children's Christmas pantomimes in Kidderminster, Worcestershire.

He extended the rear of his house single handed. He also devised a method of making carpets by gluing yarn to a hessian backing using a rubber glue and went on to make a stair carpet using his technique.

Yet another innovation was controlling air for fireplaces using and underfloor valve, and metal firebacks allowing air behind the fire to be heated and then discharged by convection through vents on either side of the mantelpiece.

In the 1970’s he taught oil painting to his golf club members at Blakedown and Churchill Golf Club, Worcestershire. Many of his students’ paintings were extremely good such that they received great write-ups in the local newspapers[3].

Prizes

1. Whilst at Regent Street Polytechnic he won a prize for four designs for fabric representing Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter. They were all very drab colours reflecting the taste at that time.

2. At age 35 he won 15 guineas for a Royal Society of Arts Awards offered by O.C.M. London for Oriental carpet designs.

3. In 1984 his watercolour "Reflections" was awarded champion picture of the Toowoomba Art Society annual Carnival exhibitions at the City Hall Gallery[8].

4. Just prior to his death in 1986 he won a Toowoomba Art Society prize of an excellent anatomy book.

References

1. Catalogue of the Kidderminster Three Arts Guild, Fifth Annual Art Exhibition, 22 November, 1947

2. The County Express March 17, 1972; The County Express, Friday, April 9, 1976

3. Kidderminster Shuttle and Stourport Courier, August 6, 1976 - two man exhibition at Bewdley Library with his lifelong artist friend Jack Mellor

4. Catalogue of the Kidderminster Art Gallery Exhibition of Paintings, 5th to 26th August 1978

5. 20th Century British Marine Painting, by Denys Brook-Hart, Published by Antique Collectors Club Ltd, 1981, p258, ISBN 0 902028 90 1

6. Toowoomba Chronicle May 20, 1982

7. Catalogue of Birmingham Watercolour Society 74th Annual Exhibition, 27th October to 8th November 1980 Toowoomba Chronicle, July 2, 1986; Birmingham Watercolour Society Programme 1981-82

8. Royal Society of Portrait Painters Catalogue, Feb 1st to March 1st 1947, p18, exhibit no 109, “Mr F Austin”

9. Royal Society of Portrait Painters Catalogue, Nov 20th to Dec. 22nd 1948, p28, exhibit no 287 ‘The Process Worker”.

10. Catalogue of the Selection from the 55th Exhibition of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters Selection shown at the Ferrens Art Gallery, City of Kingston upon Hull, July 16th to August 13th, 1949, "The process worker"

11. “The Royal Society of Marine Artists Exhibitors 1946-2008”, A dictionary of artists and their work in the Annual Exhibitions of The Royal Society of Marine Artists, Ed. Charles Baile de Larerrière.

External links

• www.example.com