Artist Lucien Smith, Fixture of NYC’s Downtown Scene, Dies at 37

Artist Lucien Smith, a prominent figure in New York City's vibrant downtown art scene, has passed away at the young age of 37. The news was confirmed by Erin Goldberger, director of Half Gallery, which showcased the artist's work in its early stages. The cause of death remains undisclosed.

Smith is best remembered for his Rain Paintings series (2011-12), a body of work he began creating the year he graduated from Cooper Union. The series involved spraying acrylic paint loaded into fire extinguishers onto canvases, a technique that quickly gained traction within the early-2010s movement reviving mid-20th-century abstraction and formalism. However, Smith's career was not without its challenges, as he was subjected to the rapid cycle of market growth and decline that characterized this period.

In 2015, Smith chose to step away from commercial galleries and began advocating for himself and his fellow artists. In recalling Smith, Bill Powers, an art dealer and owner of Half Gallery, shared a lighthearted anecdote: "I remember Lucien wanted to do a video of himself dressed as a ghoul in a tuxedo walking through Times Square as a joke about being the face of 'Zombie Formalism'." Powers went on to express his profound regret at losing such a unique talent, stating, "He will be missed terribly."

Born in 1989 in Los Angeles, Smith spent his formative years on the Lower East Side until his teenage years. His mother, a fashion designer, and father, an artist and musician, eventually moved him back to Los Angeles. Upon completing high school, Smith returned to New York to further his studies at Cooper Union, where he honed the aesthetic language that would later define his Rain Paintings series and lead to his commercial success upon graduation.

A notable example of Smith's early success is "Hobbes, The Rain Man, and My Friend Barney / Under the Sycamore Tree," a painting that first appeared in his 2011 thesis show. Originally purchased for $10,000, the piece fetched a staggering $389,000 at auction at Phillips in 2013. Two years later, however, collector Alberto Mugrabi revealed that the work was virtually unsellable, highlighting the volatile nature of the art market and Smith's own acknowledgment of its pitfalls.