The Fine Art of Friendship: Artist supports upcoming exhibits at GW’s Luther W. Brady Art Gallery
Many facets of the visual world captivate artist Clarice Smith, an alumna and former teacher at The George Washington University.
And many programs at GW have benefited from the largesse of her family, which has been strongly supportive of the University for three generations.
The Smith Hall of Art was endowed by Clarice and her husband, Robert Smith, in the 1980s; he is a GW trustee emeritus. Robert Smith’s father, Charles E. Smith, endowed the Charles E. Smith Athletic Center, and the family also endowed the Charles E. Smith Chair in Judaic Studies. The couple’s son, David Bruce Smith, is a trustee.
Now Clarice Smith has provided a gift to the Luther W. Brady Art Gallery, capping a bright year for the gallery, which included celebrating the fifth anniversary of its dedication on May 9.
Clarice Smith’s gift, providing both inspiration and the means for additional gallery shows, was made expressly in honor of her friend and colleague, GW’s director of University art galleries and chief curator, Lenore D. Miller.
“I am so delighted and energized by this gift, which creates the means to fund endeavors over the next three years,” says Miller with evident happiness. “It’s a very touching thing.”
Clarice Smith decided to donate $150,000 to the Brady Art Gallery over three years. The gift will fund three thematic exhibits, catalogues, research, and consultants.
“I am thankful that I was educated by the fine arts program when it offered a sound and solid foundation of expertise upon which the artist could soar with his or her creativity,” she states.
For more than three decades, the artist has expanded from her role as wife and mother to becoming a student artist and an accomplished painter. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree in 1976 and Master of Fine Arts in 1979, both from GW.
She became a GW faculty member herself, from 1980 to 1987, teaching watercolor and portraiture as part of the Department of Fine Arts and Art History, as well as having her work exhibited worldwide.
Miller curated exhibitions of her work in a seven-museum tour of “Clarice Smith: Remembered Moments,” exhibited in GW’s Dimock Gallery in 1986.
Miller next collaborated with her to write the essay for “Clarice Smith ReCollection 1978-2003” that accompanied an exhibition at The Art Gallery, University of Maryland, in October 2003, preceded in May 2003 by an exhibit of Smith’s paintings at the Luther W. Brady Art Gallery titled “Clarice Smith: Paintings.”
Now Clarice Smith’s gift will enable Miller to undertake a new series of exhibits.
Details are in the process of being determined, but the first exhibit will employ a timeline concept and incorporate historical and fine arts teaching methodology with the galleries’ archives into a catalogue, taking “history” painting as a theme, including figuration, drawing, portraiture, and emphasizing its long tradition. Miller will seek contemporary artists of importance who work with history painting. The second and third exhibits are in the planning stages.
Clarice Smith “has confidence that the gallery will continue to grow,” Miller says, “that we will bring other artists into the exhibition schedule. These projects will merge scholarly tradition with artistic creativity and enable the Luther W. Brady Art Gallery to be a catalyst for dialogue.”
—Jeannette Belliveau
