Bernard Smith (1916–2011) is responsible for the modern discipline of the study of Australian art. An influential teacher and cultural commentator, Smith established his name in 1945 with the publication of Place, Taste and Tradition, one of the first books to examine the history and evolution of Australian art. Other publications include the widely acclaimed European Vision and the South Pacific (1960) and Modernism's History: A Study in Twentieth Century Art and Ideas (1998). Smith joined the Department of Fine Art at Melbourne University in 1955. He was Power Professor of Contemporary Art and Director of the Power Institute of Fine Arts at the University of Sydney from 1967 until he retired in 1977.
This portrait of Smith is from Faces I Have Met, Albert Tucker's visual record of the creative people who were part of a radical cultural circle in 1940s Melbourne.
Purchased 1998
© Albert & Barbara Tucker Foundation. Courtesy of Smith & Singer Fine Art.
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