Lucien Smith, the contemporary artist known for his “Rain Paintings” and for his support of emerging creatives, has died at the age of 37. His career moved from a rapid rise in the early 2010s art market to a broader practice spanning painting, community initiatives, hospitality, and new forms of creative experimentation.
Born in Los Angeles in 1989, Smith entered the art world after graduating from Cooper Union in 2011. His two-person thesis exhibition, Imagined Nostalgia, introduced the “Rain Paintings,” made by blasting paint-filled fire extinguishers onto canvases. The works quickly established Smith as a notable young artist and contributed to a renewed interest in mid-century abstraction.
His rapid ascent was followed by growing scrutiny from the art market. A 2014 work, “Hobbes, The Rain Man, and My Friend Barney / Under the Sycamore Tree,” sold for $389,000 USD on the secondary auction market, increasing dramatically from its initial price. Smith subsequently stepped away from the commercial gallery system and moved to a country home in Montauk in 2015, seeking distance from the pressures that had shaped his early career.
“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.”
Building a Creative Community
Smith’s withdrawal from the gallery system became a starting point for another part of his practice. In 2016, he launched Serving the People (STP), a non-profit centred on opportunity, community, and experimentation for young talent. The initiative grew into a wider creative network and included figures such as Tremaine Emory, Heron Preston, and Virgil Abloh. Abloh also hosted a collaborative exhibition with Smith in 2018.
STP’s inaugural exhibition, Fear Eats the Soil, presented at Frieze LA in 2020, marked another stage in Smith’s evolving practice. Reflecting on his position at the time, he said, “I feel like an emerging artist again,” adding, “When you think about art, it’s the ability to create something from within.”
Although Smith remained critical of the art market and gallery system, he continued to exhibit selectively. His later work moved beyond traditional painting and sculpture, including airbrush paintings produced with a robotic arm for Burn Down the House and People Are Strange. The exhibitions explored reflections on his own career alongside society’s fixation with celebrity.
His creative community also extended into food and hospitality. In 2025, Smith revived FOOD, the artist-run eatery founded by Carol Goodden, Tina Girouard and Gordon Matta Clark. Located at Canal and Eldridge, the restaurant continued the founders’ vision of providing a place where artists could gather around food and conversation.
“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. The restaurant is currently closed until further notice, while a memorial dinner service was held on September 8.
A Return to the Rain Paintings
Shortly before his death, Smith returned to the series that had first brought him recognition. At Camp Hero, an abandoned baseball field in Montauk, he airbrushed four large canvases for Delay of Game, an exhibition still scheduled to open September 12 at Tripoli Gallery.
“A process like this is a gift,” Smith said on his show, Delay of Game. “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.”
The return to the “Rain Paintings” brought Smith’s career back to one of its earliest points while reflecting the distance he had travelled since their debut. Rather than simply revisiting the works that established him, the series became part of a later practice shaped by experimentation, community, and a reassessment of his relationship with the art world.
Smith’s career ultimately extended far beyond the paintings that first made his name. Through Serving the People, FOOD, and his evolving studio practice, he created spaces for artists and creatives to connect while continually reconsidering his own place within the industry.
His return to “Rain Paintings” also recalls a 2013 Artsy interview in which dealer Alberto Mugrabi explained his interest in Smith by saying, “I will be watching Lucien Smith because he brings me sunshine in the rain.”
