In his widely influential essay, “Provisional Painting,” published in May 2009 in Art in America, Raphael Rubinstein cited Smith, alongside Joan Miró and Martin Barré, as one of the precursors to a new approach to painting, a discipline Rubenstein suggests is, “in part, a struggle with a medium that can seem too invested in permanence and virtuosity.” Rubinstein states that Smith’s “stylistic fusion” anticipates Mary Heilmann’s “informal formalism, … splash[ing] Matissean insouciance over the serious-minded legacy of Abstract Expressionism.”

After Smith’s death in 1981, his work was exhibited posthumously at the Carnegie International, Pittsburgh, PA (1985); the American Center, Paris (1985, 1988); Vitalita Nell’Arte, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, which traveled to Palazzo Grassi, Venice, and Kunsthalle, Recklinghausen, Germany (1986). A retrospective exhibition was held at Kunstmuseum Winterthur, Winterthur, Switzerland (2004), which traveled to the Josef Albers Museum, Bottrop, Germany (2004-2005).