Cheim & Read presents Kimber Smith, Paintings: 1965 – 1980, the gallery’s first exhibition with the artist, and his first exhibition in the US since 2011.
Smith had his first exhibition at The New Gallery, New York, in 1951, where his work was paired with Joan Mitchell’s. The same gallery gave him his first solo only three years later. Smith’s effortless style anticipates the work of influential artists such as Mary Heilmann, Richard Aldrich, and Joe Bradley.
The disarming sparseness of his works is a result of the artist's emancipation from traditional formal concerns. Smith’s canvases seem to distill art-making to its essentials, reconstructing the painted image from scratch.