Born January 15, 1940 at the St. Ignatius Indian Mission on her reservation, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith was an enrolled Salish member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Nation, Montana. Smith received an Associate of Arts Degree at Olympic College in Bremerton, Washington in 1960, a BA in Art Education from Framingham State College, Massachusetts in 1976, and an MA in Visual Arts from the University of New Mexico in 1980.
Smith began creating complex abstract paintings and prints in the 1970s. Combining appropriated imagery from commercial slogans and signage, art history and personal narratives, she forged an intimate visual language to convey her insistent socio-political commentary with astounding clout. Smith’s work carried tremendous weight and yet felt light and conversational—in large part due to her forged, personal lexicon of developed imagery. For her ability to create and integrate her own visual language in her canvases, Smith produced multi-faceted work grounded in themes of personal and political identity.
Smith received numerous awards such as the Academy of Arts and Letters Purchase Award, New York, 1987; the Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters Grant, 1996; the Women’s Caucus for the Arts Lifetime Achievement, 1997; the College Art Association Women’s Award, 2002; Visionary Woman Award, Moore College, Pennsylvania, 2011; Living Artist of Distinction Award, Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, 2012; The Woodson Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award, 2015 among others, and received four honorary doctorates: Minneapolis College of Art and Design, 1992; Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, 1998; Massachusetts College of Art, 2003; University of New Mexico, Albuquerque 2009.
