Gordon Appelbe Smith b. 1919

Bau-Xi Gallery, Vancouver
Private Collection, British Columbia

As Gordon Smith continues along his path as a painter, now well into his ninth decade, he is producing some of the best work of his life. In this respect, he has the precedent and example of other exceptional painters who have found that the experience of a long career provides a firm base for innovation, risk-taking, and a sort of ‘devil-may-care’ attitude that lets one go straight to the truth, without inhibition or deviation.

This canvas, Roots and Moss I, comes at a turning point in Smith’s career in 1987, when he was searching for a new and more meaningful way to make paintings. This painting, with its spontaneity and vigourous application, is a clear forerunner of the wonderful years that were then beginning to unfold. The rich colours, the freedom in the brushwork, the subtlety in the nuances from one section of the painting to another – these are all the characteristics for which Smith is so much admired today by much younger generations of artists and by a growing and loyal group of sharp-minded collectors.