'Shut Up the Music' Framed Mixed Media Collage on Masonite by Ray Smith (B.1959)

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An early mixed-media collage on Masonite from contemporary Mexican-American painter and sculptor RAY SMITH (b. 1959). Smith often employs art … Read more An early mixed-media collage on Masonite from contemporary Mexican-American painter and sculptor RAY SMITH (b. 1959). Smith often employs art historical references in his postmodern compositions, and he pays conspicuous tribute here to the Spanish Cubists of the early 20th century with stenciling and newsprint. The vaguely aggressive title and the clippings from global political hotspots point toward the radical daring that much of his later work displays more openly. At the same time, they signal his bona fides as an heir to the Mexican muralist tradition. Signed en verso and contained in a fluted, gold-colored frame.

RAY SMITH was born in Brownsville, TX, in 1959, into the fabled Yturria ranching dynasty, on land that his family had settled before the American annexation of Texas. He was raised in Central Mexico and attended art academies in both Mexico and the US. He studied fresco painting with traditional craftsmen, and their influence is seen in his choice of subject matter and reflected, along with an indebtedness to Picasso and the Surrealists, in his inimitable style. Since his mid-20s, he has divided his time between NYC and Cuernavaca, Mexico.

Smith has pursued a collaborative approach to art-making, producing—often with the input of studio assistants—paintings and sculptures characterized by art historical references and magical realism and emblematic of his bicultural heritage.

Ray Smith’s work has been widely exhibited in the US and Mexico, as well as in Japan, Europe, and South America. His paintings are held in the collections of the Whitney Museum, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art—all in New York City—Atlanta’s High Museum of Contemporary Art; the Houston Museum of Contemporary Art; the Miami Art Museum; the Wurth Museum in Kunzelman, Germany; Mexico City’s Centro Cultural de Arte Contemporaneo; and Madrid’s Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia. See less