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This past week, the art world lost talented St. Louis-based painter, Vernon Smith. We at Black Art In America send our thoughts, prayers, and condolences to Smith’s family and loved ones.
The 86-year-old Smith was a longtime creative fixture on the St. Louis art scene. Known as a proud and outspoken Black history scholar and community educator, Smith’s representative drawings and portraits were showcased at the city’s Portfolio Art Gallery as well as the St. Louis Art Museum.
In a recent piece by Sylvester Brown Jr. in The St. Louis American, Portfolio Art founder Robert Powell notes that the passionate Smith “had a philosophy on black history and everything he did came from that perspective… He was always teaching and would get upset with you if you didn’t understand what he was saying or if you debated him on what he knew.”
And what he knew was substantial. Coming into prominence in the 1960s and ‘70s, Smith was an original member of the St. Louis Black Artist Group, the popular multidisciplinary arts collective that incorporated visual art, jazz, music, and theater. The group did so while promoting Black pride and knowledge of self, history, culture. Smith’s circles included the likes of prominent painters Emilio Cruz and Oliver Jackson, and such noted musicians as Oliver Lake, Julius Hemphill, and Hamlet Bluiett.
BAG (Black Artists’ Group) meeting in 1969
Photo courtesy of Oliver Lake
Smith used his artistic talents and accumulated wisdom to teach others both in classroom and the community. He influenced countless students and young artists as an art and figure drawing instructor at Meramec Community College. He opened the Hobnail Gallery around 1980 on Lee and Newstead Avenues as a place to promote Black art, represent Black culture, and to engage and facilitate community dialogue.
Given his creative talents, his cultural pride, his outspokenness, and his ongoing impact on others, Vernon Smith was easily one of the most popular and recognizable figures on the local St. Louis art scene.
In The St. Louis American article, Smith’s son, Stuart, summed up his father’s legacy in the following fashion:
“He was a talented artist who dedicated his time to his artwork. He never made the kind of money he wanted, but he did what he wanted in life,” offered Stuart, noting that “we had our differences, but he was still my dad, and I love him.”
Vernon Smith surrounded by his artwork at his apartment in 2019.
Photo compliments of Monica McFee, family friend and arts educator
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Stephanie Robinson, Esq. is a Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School, a national media figure, author, former Chief Counsel to Senator Edward M. Kennedy, and former President and CEO of The Jamestown Project, a national think tank focusing on democracy. Ms. Robinson hosted her own national radio show, Roundtable with Stephanie Robinson, a popular weekly 30-minute, talk-radio program focused on culture, politics, and relationships that aired on TSN. For over half a decade, Ms. Robinson was Political and Social Commentator for the Tom Joyner Morning Show where she spoke to between 9 and 10 million people weekly, offering her perspective on the day’s most pressing social and political issues.
Robinson is co-author of Accountable: Making America as Good as Its Promise, (Atria Books, 2009). She is a nationally recognized expert on issues relating to social policy, women, race, family, and electoral politics. She was featured as one of the 30 Young Leaders of the Future in Ebony Magazine and was profiled in the book As I Am: Young African American Women in a Critical Age, by Julian Okwu. Robinson is a frequent speaker expressing her views in countless media outlets including the Associated Press, The Washington Post, C-Span, Fox News, NewsOne and NPR.
Stephanie was a Member of President Clinton’s first Mission to Africa regarding children orphaned by AIDS. Robinson, a magna cum laude graduate of the University of Maryland and the Harvard Law School, is a native of Steubenville, Ohio. She lives in Massachusetts with her husband and two sons.
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