"The Song of the Soul," exhibit of drawings and sculpture by artist Ed Smith, opens this Thursday in the Cox Gallery at William Woods University.
"He's coming from New York," said Nicole Petrescu, Cox Gallery coordinator. "He's pretty significant; he's pretty well known."
Smith is a Guggenheim Fellow in Sculpture and Drawing and former Associate of the Royal British Society of Sculptors. He is also an Associate Fellow at Trumbull College, Yale University. He recently was elected to the National Academy of Art alongside Yoko Ono.
Smith will appear at the gallery 5-7 p.m. Thursday for an opening reception and gallery talk. The show will run through Oct. 28.
"My work is primarily involved with the mythic and heroic aspects of the artist and by extension mankind," Smith said. "It isn't fashionable or ironic. I realize my work can be tough at times, 'dark' maybe. This is because it reflects the human condition."
Smith currently is a professor of art at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, New York, and director of Marist-Lorenzo de Medici Venice Biennale Program, an intensive four-week combined studio/art history program in Venice.
He holds a BFA from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York, and an MFA from Columbia University. His work is represented in public and private collections in the United States and abroad, including the British Museum, Yale University and many more.
Smith said he defines himself as a "romantic."
"Let me assure you there is no irony here," he said. "I believe this and trust that a caring eye, through time, will see this as noble and courageous."
Smith added his work emerges from his desire to tell a story and produce something epic.
"Nonetheless, these drawings are all based upon heroism, the life of the artist and the struggle in contemporary life to do and create something of worth," he said. "They are reminders of the heroism that is still possible."
Smith's many one-person exhibitions and innumerable group exhibitions include the Albrecht-Kemper Museum, the Arkell Museum, the Queens Museum, Brooklyn Museum, Hillwood Art Museum, Caversham Press South Africa, Fleming Museum, Schenectady Museum, the Albright Knox Museum, the Robert Steele Gallery in New York City, Halsey Gallery at College of Charleston, Claudia Carr Gallery in New York City, Willard Gallery at Kansas State University, University of Louisiana-Monroe, Dartmouth College, Hollywood Art and Culture Center in Hollywood, Florida, Schenectady Museum and others.
His work has been written about and reviewed in the New York Times, Sculpture Magazine, the Baltimore Evening Sun, Art News, the Miami Herald, Times Union, Giornale Dell'Arte, San Francisco Examiner, Art New England and more.
Smith has also been a visiting artist, lecturer, artist-in-residence, professor and distinguished visiting artist at American University, Bennington College, Bard College, Brandeis University, Boston University, Kansas State University, Dartmouth College, Swathmore College, University of New Hampshire, Chautauqua Institution School of the Arts, Clark University, Dia Art Center, Trumbull College, Yale University, Lacoste School of the Arts in France, Parsons School of Art, S.V.A., University of Pennsylvania, New York Studio School, Vermont Studio Center, Glasgow School of Art, North Glasgow College and many, many others.
Awards and honors include Awards for Teaching Excellence, National Foundation for the Advancement in the Arts, Ford Foundation Grants, First Alternate Prix de Rome, Fulbright Award, Faculty of the Year Award, 2009-10 Marist College, NY State Council on the Arts and others.
Following Smith's show will be the anticipated WWU faculty show," Petrescu said.
"We are working very hard on that," she said.
Shows and gallery talks at Cox are free to the public, she added.
