Lucien Marc Smith (April 15, 1989 – September 7, 2026) was an American multidisciplinary artist best known for his abstract works and diverse projects. A graduate of the Cooper Union, he was twice featured in Forbes 30 Under 30 in the category of "Art & Style". Smith was called a "wunderkind" by The New York Times. He exhibited at galleries such as Skarstedt and Salon 94, and his work was the subject of solo exhibitions mounted at major museums. His collaborations spanned across creative fields, including partnerships with artists such as Virgil Abloh. He hosted a pop-up art show at which Travis Scott performed and directed a short film narrated by Glenn O'Brien, which was shown at Gagosian Gallery in New York City. Smith was the Inga Maren Otto Fellow in residence at The Watermill Center in 2019.

Early life and education Smith was born in Los Angeles on April 15, 1989. He was the son of African-American artist Terrence Sanders-Smith and Filipina fashion designer Vivien Ramsay. He attended Santa Monica High School, graduating in 2007. Smith later graduated with a BFA from the Cooper Union School of Art in 2011. Ventures In 2017, Smith launched Serving the People (STP), an organization building the future of creativity, collaboration, and communication. Guided by a network of creatives and technologists, STP aims to rebuild the infrastructure for cultural participation.

Also in 2017, Smith turned his Los Angeles studio into a creative project space called Appointment Only. Appointment Only was designed to host garage rock musical performances and events. It also featured a dedicated residency program for guest artists to create and display exhibitions.

In 2021, Smith was appointed Director of the Cultural Innovation Lab at Lobus, an NFT-oriented equity management firm for artists and collectors. In this role, he pitched artists on using blockchain technology to manage their assets. Later in 2021, he released an NFT collection titled Seeds via Lobus.

In 2025, Smith opened a restaurant called FOOD, located in New York Chinatown. Styled as a modern reimagination of the 1970s FOOD, –"a living artwork; a messy, social, affordable place where artists could actually be together"– with canteen style dining and artists as servers, the restaurant closed indefinitely after his death following a memorial dinner service on September 8.

Health issues and death According to his father, Smith started drinking and doing drugs back in high school. Sanders-Smith remarked that while his son was at Cooper Union, Aurel Schmidt, who was Lucien's girlfriend at the time, called him to inform that Smith had been "doing a lot of heroin". Smith gave a TedTalk at Columbia College in 2014, in which he admitted to consuming PCP. In an interview with Kenny Schachter in 2021, Smith talked about his struggles with substance abuse: "I'm a chronic relapser. I shouldn't drink or do drugs. If you're reading this, don't give me drugs if you see me."

Smith died in New York on September 7, 2026, at the age of 37.

Art market Artsy estimated in 2014 that Smith generated a total of $3.7 million at auction that year.

Smith was associated with other young painters, such as Oscar Murillo and Jacob Kassay, whose work appreciated rapidly and were favored by collectors for investment-ready fare. A work bought for $10,000 from Smith's 2011 Cooper Union graduate show was resold in November 2013 for $389,000. In February 2014, his work Two Sides of the Same Coin sold for £224,500 at a Sotheby's auction in London.-

By 2015, the art market had cooled down and Smith's art's sale value fell from six-figure peaks down to as low as $17,600.

Artworks Rain Paintings In 2011, Smith executed a suite of abstractions he called Rain Paintings, which he created by spraying fire extinguishers filled with paint. In 2014, an example of these works titled Two Sides of the Same Coin sold at Sotheby's Contemporary Art Evening Auction London's first lot for $372,000 against an estimate of $66,000–99,000.

Camo Paintings In 2014, Smith produced Tigris, a show of 11 camouflage-patterned abstract paintings, inspired by the recollection of the first work of art that strongly impacted him—Hokusai's The Great Wave off Kanagawa. The critic Christian Viveros-Fauné described the exhibit as "undistinguished" and "a shrewd career move".

Exhibitions Solo exhibitions Delay of Game, Tripoli Gallery, Montauk, New York, 2026 Burn Down the House, Kearsey & Gold, London, UK, 2026 A Day Above Ground is a Good One, Kapp Kapp, New York, 2024 People are Strange, Willshott Gallery, New York, 2024 Handyman, Lucien Smith Studio, New York, 2024 Incidentals: A Brief Survey 2011–2021, Half Gallery, New York, 2021 Secret Garden, Over the Influence, Hong Kong, 2021 Southampton Suite, Parrish Art Museum, Southampton, New York, 2020 Lucien Smith Curated by Bill Powers, Half Gallery, Paris, France, 2019 Tulips!, The Fireplace Project, Amagansett, New York, 2018 "Friends", Empty Gallery, New York, 2018 Cosmas & Damian, Moran Bondaroff, Los Angeles, 2017 Ship of Fools, Appointment Only, Los Angeles, 2017 Allergic to Morning, Moran Bondaroff, Los Angeles, 2016 Vicious Cycles, Surf Lodge, Montauk, 2016 Tigris, Skarstedt, New York, 2014 Nature is my Church, Salon 94, New York, 2013 Scrap Metal, Bill Brady / KC, Kansas City, 2013 A Clean Sweep, Suzanne Geiss, Co., New York, 2013 Good Vibrations, Half Gallery, New York, 2012 Seven Rain Paintings, OHWOW Gallery, Los Angeles, 2012 Needle in the Hay and Cripple Creek, Ritter-Zamet, London, 2011 Imagined Nostalgia, Cooper Union, New York, 2011

Group exhibitions 20th Annual Thanksgiving Collective: Breaking Bread, Tripoli Gallery, Wainscott, New York, 2024 The Smiths, Marlborough Gallery, London, 2019 Snarl of Twine, Magenta Plains, New York, 2018 MIDTOWN, curated by Jeanne Greenberg and Michele Maccarone, Lever House, New York, 2017 LA IntersecCons, Fabien Castanier Gallery, Los Angeles, California, 2017 Fake News, CES Gallery, Los Angeles, California, 2017 Family Dinner, Lep Field Gallery, San Luis Obispo, California, 2017 Intimate Paintings, Half Gallery, New York, 2015 Matters of Pattern, Skarstedt, New York, 2015 Prospect New Orleans, curated by Franklin Sirmans, Contemporary Arts Center New Orleans, 2014 Next, Arsenal, Montréal, Canada, 2014 ANAMERICANA, curated by Vincenzo de Bellis, American Academy in Rome, Rome, 2013 The Writing is on the Wall, Jonathan Viner, London, 2013 Sunsets and Pussy, with Ed Ruscha, Betty Tompkins and Piotr Uklanksi, Marianne Boesky, New York, 2013 Merci Mercy, curated by Christine Messineo, 980 Madison Avenue, New York, 2013 Beyond the Object, Brand New Gallery, Milan, 2013 It Ain't Fair 2012, OHWOW Gallery, Miami Beach, 2012 Here Comes, Mark Fletcher, New York, 2012 Homebody, The Stillhouse Group, Brooklyn, 2011 It Ain't Fair: Materialism, OHWOW Gallery, Miami, 2011 Black Eye, curated by Nicola Vassell, 54 Crosby St, New York, 2011 Jack Siegel and Lucien Smith: Imagined Nostalgia, Cooper Union, New York, 2011 Objects that Love You Back, curated by Grear Patterson, Stillhouse, New York, 2010 It Ain't Fair 2010, OHWOW Gallery, Miami, 2010 While It Lasts, The Still House Group, New York, 2010 New Deal, curated by Kyle Thurman and Matt Moravec, Art Production Fund Gallery, New York, 2009 May Flowers, curated by Scott Keightley, New York, 2009 I want a little sugar in my bowl, curated by Terence Koh, ASS Gallery, New York, 2009 Stillhouse, Seven Eleven Gallery, New York, 2008

Notes

References

External links

Now Recalling | 'Imagined Nostalgia, T Magazine. The New Deal: Just What the Art Market Needed Lucien Smith Refocuses On Art Amid the Spectacle, T Magazine. Lucien Smith: A Fresh-Faced Kid, Taking on Mortality, The New York Times. Emerging Art Cools Down, The New York Times. A Wunderkind Artist Summons a Barely Bygone New York, T Magazine.