Ken Smith

Ken Smith, born in Manchester in 1944, grew up in Japan, Singapore and Colchester. At the age of twenty, searching for inner direction, he joined an order of a Franciscan Friars for two years before going on to technical college, where he studied fine art and focussed on sculpture. At the recommendation of Henry Moore, who was enthusiastic about Ken Smith’s work, he was offered a place at the Slade School of Art by the Professor of Sculpture Reg Butler, although he turned down this opportunity and went to Walthamstow College of Art and Bristol School of Art.

The critically acclaimed sculptor, Ken Smith, has spent a lifetime stone carving on a great range of scale, from palm-sized pieces to six or eight tonnes. Much of his work has been cast in bronze and his sculptures have been exhibited regularly in London and Spain. His work has been written about by a number of critics, including Jackie Wullschlager, Arts Editor Financial Times; Sir Tim Hitchens, President of Wolfson College, Oxford and former Secretary to Queen Elizabeth II; Dr Tom Flynn, Art Historian; David Haycock, Art Critic and Writer and Satish Kumar, Writer and Ecologist.  Ken Smith shows with David Simon Contemporary for the first time in July 2026.