Richard Smith was born in Hertfordshire, England, in 1931 and died at the age of 84 in 2016.
He trained at Luton School of Art, the St Albans School of Art and the Royal College of Art, London, before receiving a scholarship to live and work in New York. Smith arrived in New York in 1959 and, aside from a two-year teaching tenure at St Martins School of Art in London, has since made the United States his base. Though he has been aligned with Minimalism, Pop Art and the Situationist Group, Smiths work is essentially characterised by his investigations into the fundamental nature of colour and form.