Artist Eric Smith won 3 Archibalds, then vanished. A new show reveals his unseen works

Photograph by Robert Walker, Eric Smith in the studio, c.1973 black and white photograph, 52cmx42cm. Barbara Smith Collection. Used with permission

There are many routes to artistic obscurity. The surest path, of course, is to have never been discovered in the first place. But this wasn’t the case with the late Eric Smith (1919-2017).

His story is not that of Vincent Van Gogh or Vivian Maier, who only achieved fame after death. Nor did he go out of his way to try and remain obscure, like Ron Gittens or James Hampton.