HASSEL SMITH
Painter, Teacher, 1915-2007

"My paintings are intended to be additions to rather than reflections of or upon 'life'."

...confident, materially comfortable, convinced of the "rightness" of his work, Smith produced a body of paintings which epitomizes the California brand of Abstract Expressionism.
- Various, SFMOMA: The Painting and Sculpture Collection, 1985

Certainly the aspects that Smith admired most in Dixieland jazz - its playfulness, self-assertiveness, and infectious high spirits - were among the salient characteristics of his own work.
- Susan Landauer, Paper Trails: San Francisco Abstract Expressionist Prints, Drawings, and Watercolors

Smith's unique voice was apparent from the beginning, and he was given his first one-man show, at the California Palace of the Legion of Honor, in 1947.
- Kristine McKenna, The Ferus Gallery, A Place to Begin

Again, there is Smith's reminder that his paintings are about nothing, they are something which waits to meet and include us.
- Walter Hopps, Hassel Smith Paintings 1948-1961, Pasadena Museum of Art, 1961

Education and Teaching
Attended Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, B.A., 1936. Studied at California School of Fine Arts, San Francisco, 1936-1938. Taught at the California School of Fine Arts, San Francisco, 1945-1952; University of Oregon, Eugene, 1947-1948; University of Berkeley, 1963-1965; University of California, Los Angeles, 1965-1966; University of California, Davis, 1973-1975; San Francisco Art Institute, 1977-1981; Bristol Polytechnic, Bristol, England, 1978-1979; Cardiff College of Art, Cardiff, Wales, 1978-1979.

Selected Solo Exhibitions 1945-1975
University of Oregon, Eugene, 1947; California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco, 1947, 1953; Lucien Labaudt Gallery (with Richard Diebenkorn), San Francisco, 1949; California School of Fine Arts (with Edward Corbett), San Francisco, 1951; King Ubu Gallery, San Francisco, 1953, 1955; East and West Gallery, San Francisco, 1953, 1955; California School of Fine Arts, 1957, 1959; Dilexi Gallery, San Francisco, 1957, 1962, 1964-1965; Ferus Gallery, Los Angeles, 1957, 1959, 1961-1962; The New Arts, Houston, 1959, 1961; Gimpel Fils Gallery, London, 1960, 1963; Hassel Smith: A Selection of Paintings 1948-1961 , Pasadena Art Museum, 281961; Galleria dell'Ariete, Milan, 1961; University Gallery, University of Minnesota, 1961; André Emmerich Gallery, New York, 1961-1963; Smith-Woelffer, Marylhurst College, Oregon, 1964; Worth Ryder Gallery, University of California, Berkeley, 1964; David Stuart Gallery, Los Angeles, 1964-1966, 1968-1969, 1973; Santa Barbara Museum of Art, California, 1968; Suzanne Saxe Gallery, San Francisco, 1970, 1973; Bristol Art Gallery, England 1972; Hassel Smith in Houston, University of Houston, 1974; Hassel Smith Paintings 1954-1975 , San Francisco Museum of Art, 1975.

Selected Group Exhibitions 1945-1975
65th Annual Painting and Sculpture Exhibition of the San Francisco Art Association (from 1961, San Francisco Art Institute) at the San Francisco Museum of Art, 1945; 68th-69th Annual, 1949-1950; 72nd Annual, 1953; Action 1, Merry-Go-Round Building, Santa Monica Pier, 1955; First-Fourth Winter Invitational, California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco, 1960-1963; Fifty California Artists, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 1962; The Artist's Environment: West Coast, Amon Carter Museum, UCLA Art Galleries and the Oakland Art Gallery, 1962-1963; A Period of Exploration: San Francisco 1945-1950, The Oakland Museum, 1973.