American painter Vincent Smith served in the army and was a railroad and postal worker before becoming a full time painter in 1953. He attended the Brooklyn Museum Art School and Skowhagen School of Painting in Maine. In 1959 Smith was awarded a John Hay Whitney Fellowship and in the 1970s received travel fellowships to study and paint in Europe and Africa. A prominent member of the Black Arts movement of the 1960s and 1970s, his work has been exhibited extensively.