Opening: Tuesday, 1 May, 6-8 pm
Exhibition: 2 May – 8 June 2007
Reg Vardy Gallery, University of Sunderland
Ashburne House, Ryhope Road, SR2 7EF t. 0191 515 2128 f. 0191 515 2132 e. robert.blackson@sunderland.ac.uk www.regvardygallery.org
Reg Vardy Gallery is proud to host the first European exhibition devoted to Harry Smith’s films and hobbies.
“Smith, who died in 1991, was a polymath of the highest order. With his coke bottle glasses, slight hunchback and long, bony tobacco-stained fingers, Smith dedicated himself to a life of seemingly infinite interests. He collected Seminole patchworks and painted Ukranian Easter eggs. He was a leading authority on string figures (such as the 'cat's cradle') and made a study of the underlying principles of Highland tartans. He recorded the peyote songs of the Kiowa Indians and in a project entitled
"Materials for the Study of Religion and Culture in the
Lower East Side", made vast live recordings of traffic noises, children's jump-rope rhymes and city birdsong, as well as the drug talk of junkies and the death-rattles and prayers of hobos in Bowery flophouses (where he himself lived in poverty for some time).
He was one of the most influential figures in avant-garde film, developing new and ingenious methods of animation, and he collected thousands of folk records which later formed the basis for the work he is best remembered for - the Anthology of American Folk Music - the seminal collection of early music recordings that was in a large part responsible for triggering the folk music revival of the 1950s and 60s.”
-- George Pendle
This exhibition includes a variety of Smith’s eccentric ethnographic collections, or what he called
‘Encyclopaedias of Design’ such as string figures,
Pysanky (Ukrainian Easter eggs), early sound recordings, and a range of his hand-painted, stop-motion and collaged animations such as Early Abstractions , and Late
Superimpositions. The exhibition will also include documentation of Smith’s paper airplane collection. This

unusual and rare collection is comprised of hundreds of paper airplanes found by Smith on the streets of New York
City from the late 1960s to the early 1980s. This exhibition of the hobbies and artistry of Harry Smith has been organised in collaboration with the Harry Smith
Archives and Anthology Film Archives, New York.
Hobbies and Films of Harry Smith is a companion exhibition to: Harry Smith Anthology Remixed at
Alt.Gallery, 8 May – 30 June. For more information please visit www.altgallery.org
or email mail@altgallery.org
All Reg Vardy Gallery events and exhibitions are FREE and open to the public.
Gallery hours are Tuesday 10 am to 8 pm, Wednesday through
Friday 10 am to 6 pm and Saturdays by appointment. For more information please contact the gallery.