After studying at the California School of Fine Art in the 1950s and encountering artists such as Richard Diebenkorn and Clyfford Still, Gordon Smith’s practice moved toward pure abstraction. His subsequent paintings increasingly featured cubist structures, colour fields, and geometric grids, rather than literal subjects. Yet, for all his exploratory instincts as a painter, Smith’s foundations remained firmly rooted in nature, a subject to which his work continually returned.

In his West Coast paintings of the 1970s, of which Howe Sound #1 is a prime example, Smith did not set aside those abstract tendencies. Instead, he employed them as a means of reimagining and expressing his encounters with the landscape. He considered it essential that viewers recognize his primary concerns as painterly ones, but equally essential was the natural setting in which those concerns took shape. In this work, the tranquil atmosphere of a British Columbia beach emerges almost subliminally through softly blended bands of colour.

The Vancouver School of Decorative and Applied Arts (VSDAA) opened on October 1, 1925, marking the beginning of formalized art education in the city. Founded through the efforts of the British Columbia Society of Fine Arts, the school was a response to Vancouver’s rapid growth and the need for cultural institutions. Under its first director, Charles H. Scott, and with prominent faculty including Jock Macdonald and Fred Varley, the VSDAA quickly became a centre of artistic activity. A vibrant social and intellectual community grew around the school, supported by figures such as John Vanderpant and Harold Mortimer Lamb. In 1933 the school was renamed the Vancouver School of Art, and over the decades it continued to expand, eventually becoming Emily Carr University of Art + Design. In 2025 the institution celebrates its centenary, a testament to its enduring role in shaping the cultural landscape of Vancouver and beyond.