“A process like this is a gift,” Lucien Smith said on his show, Delay of Game. The installation comprises four new “Rain Paintings,” the series that first put him on the map in 2012. “I let the market and outside criticism dictate my practice, and that was a mistake. Life has taken me full circle. I think it is time to return to the process I was given.”

A legacy of uncompromising rediscovery is left by Smith, a contemporary artist that pushed the boundaries of painting and art industry who has passed away at age 37. From fine art to film to restaurants, Smith held an indelible presence in the downtown scene, and in the hours since his death was confirmed, fixtures across art, fashion, and music have flooded the internet, sharing stories of how, more than just key player in the fabric of New York City, Smith was one of its architects.

A sensationalized rise-and-fall could have been the easy end to a twenty-something’s career. But for Smith it was the beginning. He spent the last decade alchemizing his journey into a platform for young artists, all while reinventing his own practice, and the art world playbook, along the way.

Born in Los Angeles in 1989, Smith came onto the scene upon graduating from Cooper Union in 2011. His two-person thesis show, Imagined Nostalgia, introduced his now-iconic “Rain Paintings” — works created by blasting paint-filled fire extinguishers on canvases, sparking a new taste for mid-century abstraction. And collectors came running.

His 2014 piece, “Hobbes, The Rain Man, and My Friend Barney / Under the Sycamore Tree,” sold on the secondary auction market $389,000 USD – scaling up its initial price by 38-times its initial price. Not long after, however, the early-2010s art market bared its teeth. Smith became the poster child of the era’s fads, along with its tides of criticism. He made a sudden exit from the city, in search for his voice without the market pressure. “Art was about money everywhere I looked. It was scary,” he said. “I was pushed into being an artist so fast that I didn’t have the chance to look at what I was doing, or wanted for the future.”

Rather than playing into the commercial gallery game, Smith took a step back. In 2015, he stopped working directly with galleries, and fled to a country home in Montauk to start afresh. It was there he embarked on new chapter of his practice: helping emerging artists similarly find their footing.

A year later, he launched Serving the People (STP), a non-profit focused on nurturing opportunity, community, and experimentation as a homegrown hub for young talent. STP, which regularly hosts workshops and meetings, has since blossomed into a global creative network, which includes the likes of Tremaine Emory, Heron Preston, and Virgil Abloh, who hosted a collaborative show with the artist in 2018. Smith also debuted a body of escapism-focused work at Frieze LA 2020 in STP’s inaugural exhibition, Fear Eats the Soil.

“I feel like an emerging artist again,” Smith told Hypebeast ahead of the LA exhibition, during a studio visit in 2020. “When you think about art, it’s the ability to create something from within.”

Though critical and outspoken of its pitfalls, Smith was never fully “against the art market and gallery system,” He continued to exhibit work from time to time, stepping into new technical territory beyond traditional painting and sculpture. Some of his most recent shows, Burn Down the House and People Are Strange, for example, featured airbrush paintings created with robotic arm. Both shows were anchored in perceptive introspections around his own career and society’s obsession with celebrity.

Last year, Smith sought a new way to nourish his community — by feeding them. He revived FOOD, the legendary artist-run eatery, in 2025. At Canal and Eldridge, he stepped into the role of restaurateur. Often seen chatting up friends outside the spot or bustling behind the counters, Smith carried its founders’— artists Carol Goodden, Tina Girouard, and Gordon Matta-Clarks’ —original vision, creating a haunt for artists to enjoy company around, well, food. The restaurant, as indicated on Instagram, is closed until further notice, though a memorial dinner service was held on September 8.

 

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While hospitality was a first for Smith, FOOD was actually right on brand for him. “It’s important that the staff feel like they’re the real centerpiece of the restaurant because without them, there’s no operation,” Smith said during a lunch service last winter, echoing the ethos he laid down through STP. It was a perfect marriage of what he’d become known for: uplifting emerging artists, be it visual or culinary, bringing them together, and, above all, playing by his own rules.

Shortly before his passing, Smith took a trip back to Rain Paintings, the works that started it all. At Camp Hero, an abandoned baseball field in Montauk last month, he airbrushed four massive canvases for Delay of Game, still scheduled to open September 12 at Tripoli Gallery. In a call-back to his early practice, we can’t help but think of this 2013 Artsy interview with titan dealer Alberto Mugrabi. When asked why the artist was next-up, Mugrabi explained: “I will be watching Lucien Smith because he brings me sunshine in the rain.”