Biography
Kenneth Coutts-Smith (b. Copenhagen, Denmark 1929-d. Toronto, Canada 1981) studied at Heatherley School of Fine Art. His first solo exhibitions were in Britain and France in 1952 which were followed by shows in Stockholm in 1953, Strasbourg in 1954, and several shows in London between 1957 to 1965, including New Vision Centre Gallery, in 1963, which he also managed. Coutts-Smith was the secretary of the Drian Gallery (1962-69) and organising secretary of the Commonwealth Biennale of Abstract Art. He also wrote poetry, short stories, and a novel Fuglefrith, as well as having a career as an art journalist and a lecturer at Liverpool College of Art in 1967 and Harrow College of Art, London, in 1968. He wrote The Dream of Icarus: Art and Society in the Twentieth Century and Dada (both 1970).
In 1970 he emigrated to Canada, teaching as a professor at the l, continuing to be active as a curator, from 1974 at Gallery 111, Winnipeg, lecturing in Europe, North America and Australia, and producing film and video works as well as mail art and paintings, notably the series Artexts shown in Halifax in 1980. He took considerable interest in contemporary art of Eastern Europe, collecting works by Yugoslav artists, and travelled also to study Canadian Inuit artists in 1975 and Australian aboriginal communities in 1980.