Gord Smith

Gord Smith (b. Montreal, 1937) studied Architecture and Engineering at Sir George Williams University and went on to work with the architectural firm of Lawson Betts and Cash in Montreal from 1956 to 1958. In 1967, he was elected to the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts (RCA). He was Assistant Professor in the Department of Visual Arts of the University of Victoria.  

Smith has completed commissions and collaborations with architects such as Webb Zefara Menkes, Arthur Erickson, Bregman Hamman, Leslie Rebanks, Gene Kinoshita and other prominent firms. His design philosophy is best summed up in a statement made to Canadian Art Magazine: “Everything — materials, texture, size, design and statement in a work of art — welds together to a point where there exists only the work itself. It just happens. A work of art does not need interpretation. It does not matter who or what I am, it is the work that is important—it should be timeless and with a power of its own.”

Smith currently resides in Toronto where he has in recent years entered a creative renewal. He is producing a body of work both in his traditional media—metals (bronze, welded steel)—and in a new medium of wooden dowels.