"Hommage à la Beauté" 110 x 110 cm

"Neige en Brabant" 60 x 50 cm

For the International Exhibition of Brussels in 1958, he designed the stands as well as all the indoor decoration (including a great glass sculpture) for the Pavilion of Arts of Fire and monumental paintings for the Pavilion of Elegance and Luxury and that of the Pavilion of Chemistry, work for which he obtained the grand prize of a gold medal. He is both a draftsman-lithographer, a creator of alphabet for a Parisian publishing house as well as the designer of office furniture for the Société Générale de Belgique. Today his artwork may be found in the United States, in Canada, and in cities such as Paris, London, Zagreb …

He has exhibited on numerous occasions in Belgium (drawings, pictures and tapestries) and has also participated in many Salons both in Belgium and abroad a few of them being the Salon des Indépendants (Paris), the castle of Vincennes and other Salons in Lille, Arras, Amsterdam, Dusseldorf, Munich and such… He is an active member of the Brussels art circle Simonis and President of the Alfred Bastien art circle. Remi Smit has been honored with the prize of the Oeuvre Nationale des Beaux Arts.

"Le Nouveau Prophète" 50 x 40 cm

" To speak of Remi Smits in the total absence of his works is not an easy matter. What’s more, should one speak of his tapestries, of the large scale murals, of the paintings, of his charcoal and pastel drawings, of the long discovery path which brought him from lithography to more unusual and startling art forms such as those of etching and engraving or stained glass ? Or would it not be best, on the day we honor his artistic career, to draw attention to his talent as an Academy Professor, of his gift to communicate with his students, of his open-mind and his great warm personality which enables him till this day to maintain an enriching contact with some of his most brilliant students on the way to becoming well-known artists ?

These are questions which will remain unanswered, for indeed it would need much more then an hour’s speech to summarize such a long-lasting, rich and varied artistic life and work. Varied certainly, but always with a remarkable unity. For the work of Remi Smits seems to me beautifully balanced, with its contrast of bright colors and faded hues, of fullness and emptiness, of black and white, where shadows cry out freedom and where the power of vertical and oblique lines exalt curves, generating both force and body as well as sensuality. An artwork which by and by shies away from being pigeonholed and frozen in time. Remi Smit’s art is classic. For to be classic is to shelter tradition. And Remi Smits, through the composition of his paintings, tapestries and murals, governed by the golden rule (the sectio aurea and divina) and his love of man, has always refused to sway with the many fashion trends washing over us for over half a century which has left man bereft of his art and its meaning. That is truly being classic and yet remaining contemporary. May all the present and born to be avant-garde artists go back to the roots of man’s knowledge and creation. Just as the artwork of Remi Smits. So that the art of today be not in vain and the painter’s brushstroke meaningless". Piet Degroof