In Memoriam: Lucien Smith (1989-2026)
The Museum mourns the loss of collection artist Lucien Smith, an abstract painter best known for his process-based works that employ both accidental and improvisational marks to create loose, all-over compositions.
Shortly after graduating from Cooper Union in 2011, Smith became widely known for his paintings made by filling an empty fire extinguisher with paint and spraying the canvas. What appealed to him in this process was the way he was able to replicate a natural process—rain—with a manmade tool.
Smith quickly gained early success and became a fixture of the Lower Manhattan art world, exhibiting nationally and internationally. Forbes featured Smith twice in its 2013 and 2014 list of 30 under 30 in the category “Art & Style.” The New York Times named him “the art world Wunderkind”.
Seeking distance from the commercial art world in New York City, Smith moved to Montauk in 2016 and established an enduring relationship with the East End and the Parrish. Around the same time, guided by a desire to build an interdisciplinary artistic community and provide a platform for creative inquiry and experimentation, he founded the non-profit “Serving the People.” In 2019, he was the Inga Maren Otto Fellow at The Watermill Center, which was part of an ongoing collaboration with the Parrish. Smith was one of seven jurors that year for the Parrish’s Artists Choose Artists, an exhibition series that highlighted the dynamic relationships among the multi-generational artist community of Long Island’s East End.
He returned to the Parrish in 2020 to launch the reopening of the Museum following the pandemic lockdown with his first museum solo exhibition, Lucien Smith: Southampton Suite. The exhibition brought his Rain Paintings series to conclusion with 10 large-scale paintings created in a plein air studio that he constructed on the East End during the summer of 2013, creating an immersive environment that continued his quest to “…replicate a natural process with manmade tools.”
Last year, Smith worked with the estate of Gordon Matta-Clark and chef Mathieu Canet to relaunch the 1970s artist-run restaurant FOOD in SoHo.
This summer, Smith was preparing his next show on the East End, making new Rain Paintings for an upcoming exhibition at Tripoli Gallery in Wainscott titled, “Delay of Game.”
Image: Lucien Smith, Artists Choose Parrish, 2019. Photo: Jenny Gorman.
