Mary T. Smith

Bio

Mary T. Smith (1904-1995) was born in southern Mississippi and worked as a domestic servant throughout most of her adult life. Smith was born with significant hearing loss, which became more severe with age and made her speech difficult to understand.

As part of the Southern tradition of "yard shows" that black artists used to decorate their property and convey messages that could not be openly voiced, Smith created an outdoor environment of incredibly graphic oil enamel paintings on found wood and pieces of corrugated roofing metal that she would drag home from a local garbage dump.

CV

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2024

Mary T.Smith, SHRINE, Outsider Art Fair, New York, NY

Mary T. Smith, Galerie C.O.A, Montreal, QC

2019

I We Our, SHRINE, New York, NY

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2023

Death of an Outsider, SHRINE, Los Angeles, CA

SOUTHERN SOMEBODIES, The Gallery of Everything, London, UK

2020

HOME, SHRINE, New York, NY

SHRINE at Intersect Aspen, Aspen, CO

2018

Annex, SHRINE, New York, NY

COLLECTIONS

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY

The Smithsonian Museum of American Art, Washington, DC

The High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA

American Folk Art Museum, New York, NY

Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, San Francisco, CA

Ogden Museum of Southern Art, New Orleans, LA

 

Untitled (three figures), 1980, enamel and house paint on corrugated metal, 27.5 x 60 in.

Untitled (figure on yellow), 1980, house paint and enamel on wood, 31.5 x 24 in.

Untitled, 1980, House paint and enamel on ax-cut corrugated metal, 35 x 26.5 in.

Untitled, ca 1980s, enamel and house paint on corrugated metal, 68 x 7 in.

Untitled (two figures), 1980, oil enamel and house paint on metal, 30 x 26 in.

Untitled, ca 1986, enamel and house paint on corrugated metal, 55 x 15.5 in.

Untitled (figure with flowers), 1988, house paint and enamel on wood, 36 x 48 in.

He No More, 1989, enamel and house paint on corrugated metal, 30 x 27 in.

Untitled (“WB WOT”), ca 1980s, enamel and house paint on wood, 19 x 48 in.

Untitled, 1980, oil enamel and house paint on wood, 31.5 x 22 in.

Mr Tornbar/I Want an Apartment, enamel and house paint on corrugated metal, 84 x 38 in.