Vincent Smith, an artist whose work depicted the rhythms and intricacies of black life in diverse styles, has died in Manhattan at 74.
Mr. Smith died Dec. 27 of lymphoma complicated by pneumonia, said Cynthia Smith, his wife.
Mr. Smith, who had more than 25 one-man shows and participated in more than 30 group exhibitions since the early 1970s, was among about a dozen prominent members of the Black Arts movement of the 1960s and ’70s.
A figurative painter with an often subtle, social thrust, he placed his subjects in a stylized way against geometric, textured and intricately colored backgrounds.
Mr. Smith, was a high school dropout who, family members said, spent his time in school sketching in his notebooks rather than listening to his teachers. He was a railroad and postal worker, traveled the country riding the rails as a hobo and served in the Army, before beginning to work seriously as a painter in 1953.
He eventually returned to school to earn a college degree at 50. But it was his early experiences as a black man that helped shape his work, along with several visits to Africa and a series of fellowships.
The cumulative influence of these experiences were on view in his last show, this fall at the Alexandre Gallery in Manhattan.
In his review in The New York Times, Holland Cotter noted Mr. Smith’s vibrant oranges and yellows, which he said glowed “like light through stained glass.”
Texture also played a role in Mr. Smith’s work. He often used sand and pebbles mixed with paint, said Lowery Sims, executive director of the Studio Museum in Harlem. Mr. Smith also projected a political black nationalism and cultural nationalism that came out of the ’60s and ’70s, she said.
