A painter and illustrator, born at Kingsthorpe, Northants, on 28th January 1908 as only child of Alfred Hacon Smith, a Northampton stationer and picture-frame maker who lived to the age of 102. Nothing else is so far known of his early life, but he showed a watercolour of ‘The Leven at Dumbarton’ (no. 803) at the Royal Academy in 1935 and two pictures at the RSBA in or by 1940, all from Chepstow Place, Bayswater. In the Second World War he was in a Royal Signals unit but is also reported to have served as an ambulance driver, presumably for it and possibly because accepted as a pacifist. He also painted some war subjects and the two shown on Art UK are compatible with that service. Of those he submitted to the War Artists Advisory Committee, it only bought ‘A Mobile First Aid Unit at Work’ in November 1941, paying 15 guineas.
After the war Smith reportedly became an ‘art lecturer’ at Epsom College (an independent secondary school). He also illustrated books through the 1940s, designed dust-jackets for them into the 1950s and was a member of the Society of Industrial Artists until at least 1961. While not yet clear if he was also a member of the English Folk Dance and Song Society himself, he played the fiddle for the Thames Valley Morris Men and other groups associated with it.
From at least c.1952 to c.1981 he lived at 65 Pope’s Avenue, Twickenham, but died in Hounslow in the third quarter of 1983.
Summarised from Art UK’s ‘Art Detective’ discussion ‘More information sought regarding war artist B. Gordon Smith’
Text source: Art Detective
