Biography

Lionel Smit (born 22 October 1982, Pretoria, South Africa) is a South African artist, known for his contemporary portraiture executed through large canvases and sculptures. Smit lives and works in Cape Town, South Africa, but is also represented internationally in London. His work has been exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery in London where it received the Viewer’s Choice Award. He received a Ministerial Award from the South African Department of Culture in 2013 for Visual Art. Born in 1982 in Pretoria, South Africa, Smit was exposed to sculpture through his father Anton Smit,[8] who worked from his studio adjacent to the family home. This studio played a central role in Lionel’s upbringing. By age twelve, Smit was already working in clay and considered himself primarily as a sculptor. At sixteen his parents separated, after which Lionel, a student at Pretoria’s Pro Arte School of Arts at the time, began to use the empty studio space his father occupied for painting. Lionel Smit’s art is defined by a relationship between sculpture and painting. Smit is based in Strand, Cape Town. He has achieved international success including sell-out exhibitions in London and Hong Kong.