Tony Smith

Artist Biography

From my early childhood days I knew I wanted to be an artist of art, prints and posters. My brother Gerald and I grew up with the smell of linseed oil and turps, watching our father paint for his living at home in Birmingham. Drawing pictures of everything we were interested in was second nature to us.

After graduating from art school with a distinction, my parents, knowing the fickleness of the fine art world, decided that I should have a proper job. I was therefore sent to work in one of Birmingham's biggest advertising agencies for five years, after which I completed two years national service as an infantryman. Neither was a happy experience for me, character building perhaps (well I have been described as a character, so maybe it came from there). Throughout those seven years painting art, prints and posters remained my first and foremost love.

I became passionate about motor racing in the mid-forties at a time when there was no racing, so all my research about the pre-war period of motor sport was developed purely from books. The only speed I could personally indulge in was cycling and I became a keen racing cyclist. My first major journey took me from Birmingham to Silverstone for the 1948 Grand Prix, which I enjoyed immensely. My subjects have ranged from portrait art, prints and posters and drawing planes, trains and military scenes, but it is the challenge of capturing speed in motor racing that occupies most of my time. Another of my passions is building sports cars, something I have done since long before I was even old enough to obtain my driving license.

Tony Smith Art, Prints and Posters Collection