LIONEL SMIT
LIONEL SMIT, Fragmented Reoccurence
Bronze, 73 x 38 x 63 cm
LIONEL SMIT, Restructure #2
Bronze, 45 x 31 x 25 cm
LIONEL SMIT, Medium Malay Girl
Bronze, 96 x 64 x 66 cm
LIONEL SMIT, Adaptive Application #2
Bronze, 49 x 29 x 20 cm
LIONEL SMIT, Adaptive Application #3
Bronze, 44 x 28 x 20 cm
LIONEL SMIT, Amalgamate
Bronze on Oak, 36 x 48 x 30 cm
Best known for his contemporary portraiture executed through monumental canvases and sculptures. Lionel Smit presents new bronze busts of female muses in coppery and pale green patinas as well as the torso of a female figure, the fissures in her body evoking cracked earth.
Contact: info@everardlondon.com
LIONEL SMIT, Broken Maquette
Bronze, 60 x 20 x 20 cm
Lionel Smit is best known for his contemporary portraiture executed through monumental canvases and sculptures. Perhaps more than anything else, Smit’s work is defined by a profound and ongoing dialogue between sculpture and painting.
A multidisciplinary artist, each of Smit’s works offers us an entry point into the variety and richness that lies beneath every face we encounter in life, whether applied in bronze or in paint. While retaining their austerity and meditative aesthetic, Smit’s figures remain highly charged with the emotive and gestural energy of his creative process.
Smit’s bronzes are created using the lost wax casting method. Patinas commonly available to artists working in bronze include natural browns, blacks and greens. However, given the importance of colour to Smit, he uses alternative methods that result in a unique fusion of intensely saturated patinas. Smit’s ability to manipulate the patination process, coupled with his focused enthusiasm for surface gradations, has allowed him to consistently push boundaries.
Smit’s process as an artist today remains adaptive, inventive, and physically engaging and he has achieved success internationally, from Hong Kong to London and New York.
LIONEL SMIT, Broken Submerge #2
Bronze, 83 x 35 x 54 cm
LIONEL SMIT, Clay Construct
Bronze, 38 x 28 x 23 cm
Working without one of the most distinctive elements in my work — colour — has been both a challenge and a gateway to discovery. Limiting the paintings to black and white became a process of exploration rather than deprivation.
This restriction led me back to some of my earliest inspirations. As a young artist I was still finding my footing in painting while primarily thinking of myself as a sculptor, creating mostly figurative works in ceramic. Painting without colour began to feel closely aligned with the sculptural process. When sculpting, colour disappears. One is left only with clay, light, shadow and the gradual emergence of form.
- Lionel Smit, Cape Town, 2026
LIONEL SMIT, Counterpoise
Bronze, 81 x 35 x 30 cm
LIONEL SMIT, Divert #2
Bronze, 68 x 53 x 32.1 cm
Best known for his contemporary portraiture executed through monumental canvases and sculptures. Lionel Smit presents new bronze busts of female muses in coppery and pale green patinas as well as the torso of a female figure, the fissures in her body evoking cracked earth.
Contact: info@everardlondon.com
LIONEL SMIT, Dual State Fragment
Bronze, 56 x 33 x 30 cm
Smit’s bronzes are created using the lost wax casting method. Patinas commonly available to artists working in bronze include natural browns, blacks and greens. However, given the importance of colour to Smit, he uses alternative methods that result in a unique fusion of intensely saturated patinas. Brilliant streaks of blues and greens enrich the grooves of an ear, while the natural shadow of an eyelid is intensified by the deepening of rich black patinas. Smit’s ability to manipulate the patination process, coupled with his focused enthusiasm for surface gradations, has allowed him to consistently push boundaries.
LIONEL SMIT, Expectancy
Oil on linen, 140 x 170 cm
Best known for his contemporary portraiture executed through monumental canvases and sculptures, with this new painting Lionel Smit uses his trademark bold, gestural brushstrokes in hues of clay, ochre and blue, to create the serene profile of a woman.
Contact: info@everardlondon.com
LIONEL SMIT, Intervals of Form
Oil on linen, 120 x 100 cm
Lionel Smit is best known for his contemporary portraiture executed through monumental canvases and sculptures. Perhaps more than anything else, Smit’s work is defined by a profound and ongoing dialogue between sculpture and painting.
A multidisciplinary artist, each of Smit’s works offers us an entry point into the variety and richness that lies beneath every face we encounter in life, whether applied in bronze or in paint. While retaining their austerity and meditative aesthetic, Smit's figures remain highly charged with the emotive and gestural energy of his creative process
LIONEL SMIT, Mortal Form
Bronze, 62 x 46 x 26 cm
LIONEL SMIT, Refracted Form
Oil on linen, 90 x 80 cm
Lionel Smit’s paintings begin with abstract lines and swathes of colour that establish a foundation for the subsequently overlaid image of a face or bust – in most cases of anonymous models from the Cape Malay community. For Smit, the Cape Malay woman epitomises hybrid identity within a South African context and reflects the fragmentation of identity within our increasingly globalised world.
LIONEL SMIT, Repose #2
Bronze, 31 x 36 x 36 cm
Lionel Smit is best known for his contemporary portraiture executed through monumental canvases and sculptures. Perhaps more than anything else, Smit’s work is defined by a profound and ongoing dialogue between sculpture and painting.
A multidisciplinary artist, each of Smit’s works offers us an entry point into the variety and richness that lies beneath every face we encounter in life, whether applied in bronze or in paint. While retaining their austerity and meditative aesthetic, Smit’s figures remain highly charged with the emotive and gestural energy of his creative process.
Smit’s bronzes are created using the lost wax casting method. Patinas commonly available to artists working in bronze include natural browns, blacks and greens. However, given the importance of colour to Smit, he uses alternative methods that result in a unique fusion of intensely saturated patinas. Smit’s ability to manipulate the patination process, coupled with his focused enthusiasm for surface gradations, has allowed him to consistently push boundaries.
Smit’s process as an artist today remains adaptive, inventive, and physically engaging and he has achieved success internationally, from Hong Kong to London and New York.
LIONEL SMIT, Repose #3
Bronze, 37 x 40 x 43 cm
Lionel Smit is best known for his contemporary portraiture executed through monumental canvases and sculptures. Perhaps more than anything else, Smit’s work is defined by a profound and ongoing dialogue between sculpture and painting.
A multidisciplinary artist, each of Smit’s works offers us an entry point into the variety and richness that lies beneath every face we encounter in life, whether applied in bronze or in paint. While retaining their austerity and meditative aesthetic, Smit’s figures remain highly charged with the emotive and gestural energy of his creative process.
Smit’s bronzes are created using the lost wax casting method. Patinas commonly available to artists working in bronze include natural browns, blacks and greens. However, given the importance of colour to Smit, he uses alternative methods that result in a unique fusion of intensely saturated patinas. Smit’s ability to manipulate the patination process, coupled with his focused enthusiasm for surface gradations, has allowed him to consistently push boundaries.
Smit’s process as an artist today remains adaptive, inventive, and physically engaging and he has achieved success internationally, from Hong Kong to London and New York.
LIONEL SMIT, Repose #5
Bronze, 29 x 46 x 57 cm
Working without one of the most distinctive elements in my work — colour — has been both a challenge and a gateway to discovery. Limiting the paintings to black and white became a process of exploration rather than deprivation.
This restriction led me back to some of my earliest inspirations. As a young artist I was still finding my footing in painting while primarily thinking of myself as a sculptor, creating mostly figurative works in ceramic. Painting without colour began to feel closely aligned with the sculptural process. When sculpting, colour disappears. One is left only with clay, light, shadow and the gradual emergence of form.
- Lionel Smit, Cape Town, 2026
LIONEL SMIT, Reversible
Oil on linen, 150 x 120 cm (59 x 47 1/8 in.)
Lionel Smit is best known for his contemporary portraiture executed through monumental canvases and sculptures. A multidisciplinary artist, each of Smit’s works offers us an entry point into the variety and richness that lies beneath every face we encounter in life, whether applied in bronze or in paint. While retaining their austerity and meditative aesthetic, Smit’s figures remain highly charged with the emotive and gestural energy of his creative process.
Smit’s paintings begin with abstract lines and swathes of colour that establish a foundation for the subsequently overlaid image of a face or bust – in most cases of anonymous models from the Cape Malay community. For Smit, the Cape Malay woman epitomises hybrid identity within a South African context and reflects the fragmentation of identity within our increasingly globalised world.
Smit’s process as an artist today remains adaptive, inventive, and physically engaging and he has achieved success internationally, from Hong Kong to London and New York. Smit’s painting has been exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery in London where it received the Viewer’s Choice Award, as well as selected as the ‘face’ of the BP Portrait Award 2013. In 2016, Smit, in collaboration with Cynthia-Reeves Gallery, installed a public art installation, ‘Morphous’, in New York’s Union Square. He received a Ministerial Award from the South African Department of Culture for Visual Art.
LIONEL SMIT, Stable Form Fragment
Bronze, 33 x 15 x 14 cm
Working without one of the most distinctive elements in my work — colour — has been both a challenge and a gateway to discovery. Limiting the paintings to black and white became a process of exploration rather than deprivation.
This restriction led me back to some of my earliest inspirations. As a young artist I was still finding my footing in painting while primarily thinking of myself as a sculptor, creating mostly figurative works in ceramic. Painting without colour began to feel closely aligned with the sculptural process. When sculpting, colour disappears. One is left only with clay,
light, shadow and the gradual emergence of form.
- Lionel Smit, Cape Town, 2026
LIONEL SMIT, Surge
Bronze, 135 x 70 x 50 cm
Acclaimed South African artist, Lionel Smit is best known for his contemporary portraiture executed through monumental canvases and sculptures. Now 40, Smit has been sculpting since he was a child, spending his days in and around his sculptor father’s studio.
Smit’s sculptures are often highly textured like this one, entitled Surge, where the hand - and tools - of the artist are clearly evident in the finished bronze.
Smit is both a painter and sculptor and has explored on canvas, paper and here in clay a version of the Janus head but Smit instead creates a double portrait, one face looking skywards and the other looking towards the earth. A simple yet powerful metaphor for life.
LIONEL SMIT, Unforeseen
Bronze, 56 x 45 x 27 cm
Specialists in contemporary art from South Africa. Established in 1913. South African artists are part of the global conversation. We seek to make their voices heard.