R G Smith The Man And His Art

R.G. Smith began his career as an engineer for Douglas Aircraft Company in the 1930s, and played a key role in the design of many successful tactical airplanes and along the way developed world-class skills as an artist. In this autobiography, "R.G." describes his transition from helping design tactical aircraft to painting them in such compelling and dramatically beautiful fashion that he earned a worldwide reputation as one fo the most skilled and admired aviation artists of all time. This book features over 140 of his best paintings, drawings and sketches, and includes an excellent sampling of his non-aviation art depicting landscape, harbor and other scenes from the far west. 140 colour & b/w photographs

(From the Foreword) George Menzel has an investigative mind, as one might expect of a man whose main career was with the FBI...he would not rest until he had traced the reason for an artist's choice of subject in a print that fascinated. The subject was a B-17 Fortress bomber bearing the markings of the squadron with which, as a young man, George Menzel had served during the trouble with Adolf Hitler and his supporters. Soon the detective discovered that the individual Flying Fortress portrayed by the artist had been involved in a remarkable adventure. And, like all good detectives, George Menzel did not rest until he had gathered and sifted all the evidence.

"Folk art can help you to lead a halfway decent life," Robert E. Smith (1927-2010) was heard to say; but Springfield, Missouri's most famous, eccentric, and beloved painter pushed his work into the realm of outsider art. Self-taught, Smith began painting while a young man: forcibly institutionalized following a nervous breakdown, he retreated into his art. Unsurprisingly, his art brut is unbounded by logic, time, and space, brilliantly colored, at once childlike and troubling. But Smith's art reveals more than an imagination unfettered. The work of an inveterate story-teller, his paintings present witty, savvy, complex visual narratives. Cartoon animals mingle with sidewalk preachers, movie stars, and U.S. Presidents; in busy street scenes, bicycles and trolley cars bustle below while blimps and airplanes and UFOs-and an occasional nuclear bomb-fly overhead. Smith's painting revels in satire, revealing an eye for incongruity and an inherent love of life. Even a cursory view of his work reflects a man who led a rich, wondrous life and whose fanciful yearnings inspired the community that cherished him. Born in St. Louis, Smith moved to Springfield in 1975. Drawn mainly from local, privately-owned collections, the present anthology features thirty full-color illustrations along with cartoons, poems, and stories by the artist.