a last look at Craig Smith Unmasked

Bidding reserve: Highest Bid so far $200

The Charming Craig Smith

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The mask that Craig made

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Call of the Wild

Before Craig decorated it, it looked like this:

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About Craig Smith

Craig grew up in the Adelaide Hills, where his family ran two shoe shops. Paints and brushes were always around as his dad painted posters for the shops, copied from lettering and style manuals. Craig liked to copy comic characters but, was much more interested in making contraptions in the shed. His home town, Woodside, was close to an army barracks where soldiers were training for the Vietnam war. From inside our classroom, he and his classmates heard the rattle of machine guns on the target range while helicopters flew overhead, practising fast landings and take-offs. Out of school, Craig and his mates could often be found sifting through stuff at the local tip for stuff to use in pretend combat – helmets, bits of uniform and rucksacks, ammo boxes, bullet-riddled targets, stretchers.

Then his sister, Maire – who had always been, even as a small kid, very skilled at drawing – left home to go to the South Australian School of Art. Craig later followed in her footsteps. In time, he studied graphic design, and photography, but typography (lettering), was his main interest. He like drawing because, it was, according to him, much funnier than typography. One assignment required him and the other students to illustrate a story. It was a struggle then he submitted it to a publisher in Sydney. She rejected it, but encouragingly added in her letter, ‘If you ever come to Sydney, drop by’. Craig hitchhiked up there almost immediately and this led eventually to his first picture book, Christobel Mattingley’s ‘Black Dog’.

He has been a freelance illustrator since 1976. For some of the early years he had part-time jobs – washing dishes in a restaurant, scraping rust off the Sydney Harbour Bridge. One interesting job was working as a nurse’s aide in a hospital for the elderly. In that role he was able to observe the human body – something artists usually do in a life drawing session. This experience stayed with him and affected the characterisation of his work.

He live with artist and publisher, Erica Wagner, in Melbourne and they have four grown-up children and four little grandchildren.

Here is a picture of Craig and Erica at the Masked Ball of the Red Queen