Equinox Gallery is pleased to present A Painter’s Legacy, an exhibition of works by the late Canadian artist Gordon Smith (b. 1919, d. 2020). A brilliant painter with an international following, Smith’s style evolved over a lifetime as he made increasingly complex and layered, dense paintings. A prominent figure in a generation of notable West Coast painters, architects, poets, musicians and writers, Smith had an openly inquisitive mind and experimented endlessly in his art making. The unique presence of nature on the Pacific coast was a boundless inspiration to the artist. From the rich forest that surrounded his home and studio in West Vancouver to the shorelines he encountered on trips up and down the coast, Smith produced a vast body of work that alternated between representation and abstraction. It was not the grand vistas nor the broad expanses of nature that attracted Smith, he was drawn to the web of trees, the entanglement of undergrowth, the reflection of a swamp, the snowfall on a branch—the intricacies of how nature functions cyclically and seasonally, through spring, fall and winter.
Gordon Smith: A Painter's Legacy opens on September 10th, 2022 at Equinox Gallery on Commercial Street in Vancouver.
Press Release

The Estate of Gordon Smith

The Estate of Gordon Smith

Gordon Smith (1919-2020) was a key figure in contemporary Canadian art. Since the 1950s, he worked continuously to expand the dialogue between abstraction and representation. In his tangled paintings, there is the insinuation of entire fields of colour below the surface. Over the course of his 75-year long career he has made paintings employing that procedure of looping and overlapping, the movement of line to line, texture into texture and colour into colour. His work has been an evolving search for balance between abstraction and his love of the land, which has given us insight into both the act of painting and the essence of the West Coast.

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Etienne Zack
Without a Doubt

November 23, 2024 - December 21, 2024
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Hamed Rashtian
Word Sculptures

October 17, 2024 - November 16, 2024
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Gordon Smith
Early Works (1946 to 1966)

September 6, 2024 - October 12, 2024
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Shawn Hunt
Ḱáɫḷá / To Dream
at the Fairmont Pacific Rim

June 19, 2024 - September 27, 2024
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Bobbie Burgers
A Window or A Mirror

May 30, 2024 - July 6, 2024
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Philippe Raphanel
New Paintings

January 13, 2024 - February 10, 2024
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Angela Grossmann
The Silver Suite

January 13, 2024 - February 10, 2024
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Gwenessa Lam
Before Present

November 18, 2023 - December 16, 2023
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Erin McSavaney
Interactions

November 18, 2023 - December 16, 2023
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Zoë Kreye
Well, beloved, it is that which we want to call the secret growing

September 9, 2023 - October 14, 2023
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Kim Dorland
The moment before the moment after

June 17, 2023 - July 15, 2023
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Angela Grossmann
To a Woman Passing By
at the Fairmont Pacific Rim

June 8, 2023 - October 5, 2023
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Bobbie Burgers
Partly Truth, Partly Fiction

May 13, 2023 - June 10, 2023
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Marten Elder
New Colour Photographs

April 1, 2023 - April 29, 2023
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Paying Attention
at the Fairmont Pacific Rim

March 13, 2023 - May 27, 2023
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Jack Kenna
How Slowly Time Passes, How Quickly Things Change

February 25, 2023 - March 22, 2023
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Angela Grossmann
With Themselves

January 21, 2023 - February 18, 2023
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Adad Hannah
at the Fairmont Pacific Rim

October 5, 2022 - January 9, 2023
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Devon Knowles
Gone and Going

October 22, 2022 - November 19, 2022
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Shawn Hunt
The First Moonrise

February 19, 2022 - March 19, 2022
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Special Project
future relics of our time

February 19, 2022 - March 19, 2022
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Jack Shadbolt
The Long Echo

November 27, 2021 - January 8, 2022
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Ben Reeves
A Boat Made of Ocean

October 16, 2021 - November 20, 2021
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Etienne Zack
Reflections on a Quiet City

May 15, 2021 - June 12, 2021
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Bobbie Burgers
Natural Disorder

November 19, 2020 - December 19, 2020
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Shawn Hunt
The Beginning of Something

October 10, 2020 - November 14, 2020
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Summer Exhibition
Gallery Artists

July 28, 2020 - August 29, 2020
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Renée Van Halm
Holding Pattern

January 18, 2020 - February 15, 2020
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Gathie Falk
New Paintings and Sculpture

September 7, 2019 - October 12, 2019
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BC Binning, Devon Knowles and Renée Van Halm
Leave the Window Open

September 9, 2019 - October 12, 2019
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Some Drawings
A Group Exhibition

March 9, 2019 - March 30, 2019
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Takao Tanabe
A Major Exhibition

January 17, 2019 - March 2, 2019
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Ben Reeves
Something Edge

November 24, 2018 - December 22, 2018
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Angela Teng
A Coloured Image of the Sun

November 24, 2018 - December 22, 2018
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Gordon Smith
Through the Trees

September 8, 2018 - October 13, 2018
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Jack Shadbolt
The Ghost Universe

January 20, 2018 - February 22, 2018
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Al McWilliams
Floor Thoughts

December 2, 2017 - January 13, 2018
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Gathie Falk
The Things in My Head

November 7, 2015 - December 12, 2015
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