Arthur Hall Smith was born in 1929 in Norfolk, Virginia, and he obtained his bachelor of fine art degree from Illinois Wesleyan University in 1951. Having received a Fulbright scholarship on graduation, he traveled to Paris to study at the National School of Fine Arts and with Stanley William Hayter. He pursued graduate study at the University of Washington and studied further with Mark Tobey. From 1960 through 1974, Smith was a curatorial assistant at the Phillips Collection, and from 1974 until his retirement and move to Paris, he taught drawing and painting at George Washington University. Smith is well known for his careful, figurative drawings and energetic, abstract paintings. The artist's work has been included in numerous solo and group exhibitions, on view at Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, and the National Gallery of Art, among others. In 2014, a memorial exhibition of Smith's work was presented at the Luther W. Brady Art gallery at George Washington University. His work is included in the collections of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and Smithsonian American Art Museum, among others.
