DENNIS SMITH

Born in Murray, Utah, this well-known and gifted sculptor, painter, poet, and prose writer is a resident of Bull River, near Highland and Alpine, Utah, where he was raised on land homesteaded by his great-grandparents in the nineteenth century. A student at Brigham Young University (1960-61; B.A., 1964-67), he also trained at the Danish Royal Academy of Art in Copenhagen (1967-68). In the 1970s, Smith completed ten pieces for a sculpture garden at the LDS Church Information Center in Nauvoo, Illinois. A busy local artist who is also the creator of "life-size" figures in Salt Lake City and Provo, and Havana, Illinois, he is a cofounder of Alpine's North Mountain Artists Cooperative, and has taught courses for BYU's art department, Arizona State University, and Utah State University, and the Division of Continuing Education at the University of Utah as well. The winner of numerous awards for his work, Smith has completed many commissions for patrons throughout this area and elsewhere. His three-dimensional work is either traditional figure sculpture cast in bronze (often showing the delights of childhood) or rather wonderful "assemblage" bronze contraptions, fascinating to the child in all of us. His paintings are normally in oil and are "childlike" in theme and character. (b. June 16)

Olpin, Robert S., William C. Seifrit, and Vern G. Swanson. ARTISTS OF UTAH. Salt Lake City: Gibbs Smith Publisher, 1999: 239.