Richard Zane Smith (born 1955) is an American sculptor who grew up in St. Louis Missouri and learned the art of pottery at the Kansas City Art institute. Smith's works draw from Wyandotte as well as

Pueblo Pueblo refers to the settlements of the Pueblo peoples, Native American tribes in the Southwestern United States, currently in New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas. The permanent communities, including some of the oldest continually occupied settlement ...

traditions, incorporating coils and layers within the clay. Smith utilizes the influences of many Southwestern pottery styles, including the Pueblos and the

Ancestral Pueblo people The Ancestral Puebloans, also known as Ancestral Pueblo peoples or the Basketmaker-Pueblo culture, were an ancient Native American culture of Pueblo peoples spanning the present-day Four Corners region of the United States, comprising southe ...

. The

Wyandotte Nation The Wyandotte Nation is a Federally recognized tribes, federally recognized Native American tribe headquartered in northeastern Oklahoma. They are descendants of the Wyandot people, Wendat Confederacy and Native Americans with territory near ...

tribal council has named Smith as a designated tribal artisan, as defined in the

Indian Arts and Crafts Act The Indian Arts and Crafts Act of 1990 (P.L. 101-644) is a truth-in-advertising law which prohibits misrepresentation in marketing of Native Americans in the United States, American Indian or Alaskan Natives, Alaska Native arts and crafts product ...

Personal life

Smith was born in 1955 in

Augusta, Georgia Augusta is a city on the central eastern border of the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. The city lies directly across the Savannah River from North Augusta, South Carolina at the head of its navigable portion. Augusta, the third mos ...

and grew up in and near St. Louis, Missouri. Smith specialized in ceramics when he attended the

Kansas City Art Institute The Kansas City Art Institute (KCAI) is a private art school in Kansas City, Missouri. The college was founded in 1885 and is an accredited by the National Association of Schools of Art and Design and Higher Learning Commission. The institute ...

. Smith was introduced to art at a young age. He and his four siblings would gather around and listen to many stories told by their parents throughout their childhood. Smith found an interest in clay during his high school years. In addition to clay, Smith would work with many natural materials, such as wood, leather, and stone, and the main media for his art was clay. During these same years, Smith also formed an interest in Wyandot culture. Smith is involved in the revival of the Wyandot language. Having gone into disuse in the 1960s, Smith began studying and teaching the language to Wyandotte people and descendants. He is a member of the

Wyandot Nation of Kansas The Wyandot Nation of Kansas is an self-identifying tribe and nonprofit organization headquartered in Kansas City, Kansas. They identify as being Wyandot. History An 1855 treaty attempted to dissolve the Wyandot tribe, but not all members a ...

, a Wyandot heritage organization.

Cultural inspiration

In 1978, Smith traveled to Arizona where he worked as an art instructor at a Navajo mission school. This was his first contact with Native clays and Ancestral Pueblo potsherds and fragments. He incorporated such ideas into his works and bore a new style of pottery. Smith's pottery draws inspiration from precontact corrugated pottery (pottery where the coils made to form the shape of the pot are left exposed and are rough textured) from the Southwest as well as resembling historic Wyandot basketry. Smith stands out for moving from Southwest-style pottery to exploring Wyandot styles of pottery.

Select artworks

* “Op-Art” Geometric Design Jar (2000) * Corrugated Bowl with Wood/Rock Handle (2005) * Garden Set of 6 Pieces (2001) * ''Bury my Heart at Auschwitz'' (1995) * ''Bear Baiting an Indian'' (2017)

Exhibitions

* ''Native American Art,''

Philbrook Museum of Art Philbrook Museum of Art is an art museum with expansive formal gardens located in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The museum, which opened in 1939, is located in a former 1920s villa, "Villa Philbrook", the home of Oklahoma oil pioneer Waite Phillips and his ...

* The

American Craft Museum The Museum of Arts and Design (MAD), based in Manhattan, New York City, collects, displays, and interprets objects that document contemporary and historic innovation in craft, art, and design. In its exhibitions and educational programs, the ...

International Tour * The American Craft Museum *

Denver Art Museum The Denver Art Museum (DAM) is an art museum located in the Civic Center of Denver, Colorado. With an encyclopedic collection of more than 70,000 diverse works from across the centuries and world, the DAM is one of the largest art museums betwe ...

* "''Breaking the Surface",''

Heard Museum The Heard Museum is a private, not-for-profit museum in Phoenix, Arizona, United States, dedicated to the advancement of American Indian art. It presents the stories of American Indian people from a first-person perspective, as well as exhibitio ...

San Diego Museum of Man The Museum of Us is a museum of anthropology located in Balboa Park in San Diego, California. The museum is housed in the historic landmark buildings of the California Quadrangle. History The museum traces its starting point to the Panama–Ca ...

Public collections

* American Craft Museum * Philbrook Museum of Art * Denver Art Museum

Honors and awards

* "Best of Pottery Award", Heard Museum's Annual American Art juried Competition * 2010 "Community Spirit Award", First Peoples Fund Richard Zane Smith no longer participates in competitions against other artists.

References

External links

Oral History Interview with Richard Zane Smith
{{DEFAULTSORT:Smith, Richard Zane 1955 births Living people Sculptors from Missouri