![\"Pulteney](\"https:\/\/themccorrycollection.com\/tmc\/db\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/B-2202.jpeg\")
<\/figure>Educated at Unley High School and Pulteney Grammar School, Jeffrey initially wanted to become an architect, but his financial reality meant that he became a trainee teacher instead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jeffrey also took classes at the South Australian School of Arts and Crafts & Adelaide Teachers College. Fortunately for Jeffrey, Dorrit Black, a pioneer modernist, returned to Adelaide and introduced Jeffrey to modernism’s cubic forms and pure lines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Image: Pulteney Grammar School, Adelaide – State Library of South Australia, B-2202<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
Career<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Jeffrey began to teach art for the education department in 1942 and joined the Royal South Australian Society of Arts, first exhibiting there in 1941.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After he approached a Melbourne commercial gallery, Jeffrey held his first solo exhibition and accompanied a local Maritime artist John Giles to paint industrial landscapes at Port Adelaide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Travelling to Europe for the first time as an adult in 1948, Jeffrey studied in Paris at the La Grand Chaumiere and later the Acad\u00e9mie Montmartre under Fernand L\u00e9ger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jeffrey also lived on the island of Ischia in the Bay of Naples in 1950, where he painted with Michael Shannon, Donald Friend and Jacqueline Hick.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 1951, Jeffrey moved back to Adelaide. He then moved to Sydney after being awarded the Commonwealth Jubilee Art Prize, Sydney, being a place where there were more opportunities for him to exhibit his art.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While in Sydney, he became an art critic of the Daily Telegraph while supporting himself by working as a school teacher.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He also hosted the ABC Radio Children’s “The Argonauts” Program as “Phidias”, an art commenter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jeffrey exhibited during this period at the Macquarie Galleries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As Jeffrey became more successful as an artist, he had the freedom to stop school teaching and pursue his art.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Return to Europe<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Jeffrey travelled to Rome, Italy, in 1963, then Arezzo, staying in Italy for the rest of his life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Being in Italy contributed to Jeffrey’s lighting of his palette, the bright contrasting geometry of sharp shapes and edges.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Although surrounded by old buildings, Jeffrey’s subjects in his artworks were of modernistic cubic shapes of shipping containers and the conjunction of old and new, of nature meeting geometry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 2001 was appointed officer of the Order of Australia for his services to visual art and his encouragement offered to young artists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jeffrey painted his final artwork in 2011, aged 90, titled “Labyrinth”, announcing his retirement on completing that artwork in 2011.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jeffrey Smart died on June 20th, 2013, at age 91.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He created many artworks in his unique style throughout his life with his crisp lines and sparse depictions of large, industrialised scenes, almost a view of a vast industrialised perfection in a world of imperfection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He claimed to add people to his artworks to add a sense of scale, as seen in his portrait of Clive James.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Further Reading:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Jeffrey_Smart<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n https:\/\/www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au\/collection\/artists\/smart-jeffrey\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n https:\/\/www.ngv.vic.gov.au\/explore\/collection\/artist\/527\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n https:\/\/www.abc.net.au\/news\/2013-06-21\/australian-born-artist-jeffrey-smart-dies-in-italy\/4770682?nw=0&r=Gallery<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n https:\/\/www.daao.org.au\/bio\/jeffrey-smart\/biography\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n