The DC History Center expresses its heartfelt condolences to the family of artist, educator, and philanthropist Clarice Smith.
During 2020 the DC History Center was privileged to conduct oral history interviews with Mrs. Smith and David Bruce Smith to capture her story of growing up in Washington. Although she lived in Virginia later in life, she always considered herself a Washingtonian. “If someone asks me where I’m from, I say Washington” she said. “I think it’s a perfect place to live.[1]
Mrs. Smith painted professionally for more than 40 years, producing portraits, landscapes, still lifes, and equestrian scenes in oil. Her 2003 portrait of Mayor Walter Washington, now in the collection of the DC History Center, borrows classical style to show the man amid his world, including the U.S. Capitol, Metro, and his LeDroit Park neighborhood.
Her work was exhibited in Washington at the Kreeger Museum and the National Museum of Women in the Arts, and in major galleries in New York, London, Paris, Zurich, and Jerusalem. A painting is in the permanent collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Late in life she took up stained glass, contributing dramatic pieces to the New-York Historical Society. “I compose paintings from the patterns I see in people, places and things,” she explained on her artist’s website, “striving to paint the moods they inspire.”[2] She also illustrated a number of children’s history books written and published by her son David Bruce Smith and his Grateful Americans Foundation. They also collaborated on books showcasing her art.
Mrs. Smith taught watercolor and portrait painting at George Washington University as a member of its art department from 1980 to 1987.
Following in the philanthropic tradition of her father-in-law, husband, and other members of the extended Charles E. Smith family, Mrs. Smith made possible the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center (known as “the Clarice”) at the University of Maryland, a multifaceted space for performance as well as studies in the arts. Robert H. Smith was the primary benefactor, and namesake, of the business school at the University of Maryland. The Robert H. and Clarice Smith Hall of Art at George Washington University combines classrooms and galleries. The Charles E. Smith Center, housing athletics and recreation, is another of the family-funded facilities and programs.
“Clarice Smith expressed her joy for life through her art and philanthropy,” said Julie Koczela, Chair of the DC History Center Board of Trustees. “Though she was an artist of international reputation, and a citizen of the world, she never turned her back on her humble roots here in DC.”
Mrs. Smith was born Clarice Rae Chasen in Washington, DC in 1933, the daughter of grocers Shea and Betty Chasen. Young Clarice spent her first 11 years living above the small grocery store operated by her parents on H Street in a working-class, predominantly African American and Jewish section of old Southwest Washington.
She discovered her talent for drawing at an early age and studied drawing and painting in school and with private teachers. After the family moved to Petworth, and her father became a broker of small businesses, she graduated from Roosevelt High School. She attended the University of Maryland, during which time she married Robert H. Smith of the Charles E. Smith Company, real estate developers. She left school to raise their three children. Twenty-four years after leaving the University of Maryland, she received her BA at George Washington University and then earned a Master of Fine Arts. Later in life she was awarded honorary doctorates by George Washington University and the University of Maryland.
Mrs. Smith’s husband, daughter Michelle Smith, and son Steven Craig Smith all preceded her in death. She is survived by son David, four grandchildren, five great-grandchildren, and scores of grateful art-lovers and arts and humanities patrons.
[1] This post draws from oral history interviews conducted for the DC History Center by Jane F. Levey on Feb. 10 and Aug. 7, 2020, and as well as claricesmith.com; “A Worthy Legacy,” by Sala Levin, today.umd.edu/a-portrait-worthy-legacy; gwtoday.gwu.edu/memoriam-artist-philanthropist-clarice-smith; and legacy.com/us/obituaries/washingtonpost/name/clarice-smith-obituary?id=31850447.
[2]claricesmith.com/inspiration/