John Smith (1955-2024)
John Smith took it all in--Black culture, history, news, sports, religion, and the daily lives of New Yorkers- the central themes of his work documented the experiences of his communities.
Images 1-3: Pandemic sketches
Image 4: Baseball cap drawing
Image 5: Drawing of Huey P. Newton
Image 6: Two Brothers, acrylic on stretched canvas, 40"x 30"x 1 1/2"
Growing up in the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Flatbush Ave, Coney Island, and Bedford-Stuyvesant of the 1950s-70s, being an artist was an unconventional career choice. John was determined to make the life he wanted for himself as an artist, an accomplishment that required discipline and force of will that John called forth throughout his life.
In his mid-30s, John enrolled at Pratt Institute, graduating with a major in drawing. He later became a mural artist with The Crown Heights Youth Collective, painting the 1955 Dodgers/ Ebbets Field mural with Willard Whitlock. John later assisted with the Community Access partnership with the NYC Mural Arts Project, led by artist Jon Souza. At the end of his life, John designed a mural for Project Find in partnership with Community Access Art Collective.
Crown Heights Youth Collective
Artists Willard Whitlock and John Smith
1955 Dodgers/Ebbets Field mural, created in 1999
NYC Mural Arts Project partnership with Community Access, lead artist Jon Souza, 2018, The Bronx. Community Access Participating artists included John Smith, Phil Engler, Nafis Q. Rashed, Rhudine Calhoon, R. Burrowes, E. Smith, J.J., Pamela Y., Freddy D., Steven Coachman "ZZZ", Osvaldo Cruz, Arturo Sitjar, Roseanne Leone, and Derrick Simmons.
Sketch for a proposed mural at nonprofit Project Find. Photo of Project Find Executive Director Mark Jennings and John Smith sitting near proposed doorway.
John trained as a peer support specialist at Howie the Harp Advocacy Center. He then joined Community Access Art Collective as an intern working alongside director artist Suzanne Coley, then as a member, and later a studio assistant. John has been an anchor in our community for over a decade.
He encouraged others to pursue their art and declare themselves artists, not to allow mental illness to define them: "People see our work first; see us as artists first. It makes us equal. Mental health isn't a liability."
In 2014, John won the FEGS Haym Salomon Award for the work "Memorial," a piece that he had been thinking about since the 2012 murder of a mother outside a Brooklyn hospital. It sometimes took years of processing, research, or building the skills John thought necessary to create a work.
John Smith
Memorial, 2014
Acrylic paint on stretched canvas
36 in x 36 in
Forty years after seeing "Black Sheep in a Red Dress" in a library book, an early, little-known work by Norman Rockwell, John responded with two versions of "Church Day: Woman in Red Dress."
John Smith
Church Day: Woman in Red Dress (1), 2016
Acrylic on stretched canvas
36 in x 48 in
John Smith
Church Day: Woman in Red Dress (2), 2016
Acrylic on stretched canvas
36 in x 48 in
John received a 2019 Queens Council on the Arts New Works grant for "The Transit Series," which he exhibited at Jamaica Center for the Arts & Learning in early 2020. The series included 10 works including The End of the Protest and Subway Performers.
John Smith
The End of the Protest, 2019
Acrylic on stretched canvas
24 in x 48 in
John Smith
Subway Performers, 2019
Acrylic on stretched canvas
24 in x 48 in
His last series of works, sketches from the hospital and a senior nursing rehabilitation center, offer a rare look through John's eyes at himself and others at a vulnerable moment in their lives, not often witnessed in contemporary art.
John Smith
From Hospital drawings, 2023
John Smith
From Hospital drawings, 2023
John Smith
From senior nursing rehabilitation center drawings, 2024
John Smith is Black History.
John with Couple and Subway Ride, 2014
John with Can't Wait in the background and
The Wedding (Gaza Strip) in the foreground, 2014
Install day of The Transit Series, Jamaica Center for the Arts & Learning
John Smith with Janet Clancy 
Temporary mural at
Howie the Harp Advocacy Center
Organized By Lynnae Brown
We carry his extraordinary spirit, talent, and friendship with us
Our condolences to all.
