Jeffrey Smart

Like many artists of his generation, Smart was drawn to the poetry of TS Eliot, and his evocations of the modern world. He began by reading Eliot’s Preludes (1910–11), inspired by the idea that seemingly ordinary things could make great subjects. Phrases like ‘newspapers from vacant lots’ and ‘His soul stretched tight across the skies / That fade behind the city block’ offered new and unexpected imagery that would recur throughout his practice.