Description
Charles W. Smith (1893-1987) was a printer, painter, and professor at the University of Virginia who grew up nearby in Waynesboro, Virginia. He was celebrated both for his evocative black-and-white prints of Virginia subjects and for his experimental, colorful abstract block paintings. He was the first chair of U.Va.’s Department of Art.
As with many fine printers, books were a particularly important creative venue—and source of income—for Smith. Over the course of his career, he worked for commercial publishers and small presses alike. It is impossible to know how many books Smith helped produce, for while some contributions, such as illustrations, are credited, many others are not: jacket design, page layout, typography, and more.
The images here were originally commissioned for a book titled The University of Virginia: Thirty-Two Woodcuts by Charles W. Smith, published by Johnson Publishing Company, Richmond, Virginia (1937). The woodcuts were donated by Smith to the U.Va. Library. Plates likely from subsequent reproductions were discarded and later entrusted to the Virginia Arts of the Book Center, a program of the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, where they were re-struck with permission of his family for this special edition in 2014.
