Ismael Smith Marí

ISMAEL SMITH MARÍ (Barcelona, 1886 - New York, 1972).
"Nude young woman".
Pencil on paper.
Signed with a dry stamp in the upper left corner.
Size: 27 x 19 cm; 43 x 35 cm (frame).
Sculptor, draughtsman and engraver, he was one of the first artists considered noucentistes by Eugenio D'Ors. Trained at the La Lonja School in Barcelona and at the Baixas Academy, he was a pupil of the sculptors Benlliure, Querol, Vallmitjana and Llimona. He was awarded a prize in a competition for new artists organised by the Ateneo Barcelonés in 1903, and in 1906 he exhibited his work in the Sala Parés. He won second and third medals at the Fifth International Exhibition of Fine Arts in Barcelona in 1907, and second medal at the Sixth in 1911. In 1910 he travelled to Paris on a grant from Barcelona City Council. Between 1913 and 1914 he studied at the Ecole Nationale des Arts Décoratifs in the French capital and then began a series of trips to England and the United States, holding numerous exhibitions. He settled permanently in New York in 1918, where he collaborated with the Hispanic Society. In 2005 the Palau Foundation devoted a retrospective to him. The matrices of his engravings are kept at the Graphic Unit of the Biblioteca de Catalunya and the Calcografía Nacional in Madrid. Many of his prints are also in the British Museum in London, and he is also represented in the Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid, the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo in Barcelona, the MoMA in New York, the Calcografía Nacional in Madrid and the Biblioteca de Cataluña.