THE RALPH MAYNARD SMITH TRUST___ ( Registered Charity Number : 1049843 )
Set up in 1995 to preserve and make known the works of the artist, writer and architect
RALPH MAYNARD SMITH (1904 - 1964)

The “RMS Archive Collection  (Drawings and Paintings)”

MAINTAINING ITS CHARACTER
When finalising the contents of the Archive in precise terms, it will be important to represent the balance between the main stages of development in the artist’s work. This balance can best be guaged by the chronologically arranged drawings and paintings on the “Gallery” page, augmented by those appearing elsewhere on this website.  

ILLUSTRATING THE WEBSITE
Examples of drawings and paintings, writings and architectural studies to illustrate this website, have been selected from the complete oeuvre as it was originally held in the “RMS Collection”, before the dispersal of some items due to sales and placements.

ILLUSTRATING THE DATABASE   
One of the RMS Trust’s objectives, listed on the “Work in Progress” page, is to produce an illustrated version of its database. Once that comprehensive visual documentation is available, an opportunity will arise to scrutinise the development of a 20th century British artist in unusually minute detail.  At the very start of cataloguing the “RMS Collection”, it was pointed out to the Trust that recording its every detail was a chance not to be missed, because it was extremely rare for an artist’s complete life’s work to be found all together and indisturbed, as was the case with Maynard Smith.

2002
Frances Carey, writing about Maynard Smith’s London exhibition “The Barrier Beyond : Record of a Secret Artist”, ended her Introduction as follows:

"The true significance of Maynard Smith’s output as an ‘imaginative artist’ goes beyond the mere adumbration of sources and influences. His ambition to shape a separate identity through his painting, drawing, reading and writing, in the face of public obligation and private depression, was like Jacob wrestling with the angel. In 1947 he gave his son Geoffrey Grigson’s recently published book on ‘Samuel Palmer: The Visionary Years’, in which one particular quotation from Palmer had a special resonance for him: ‘If my aspirations are very high, my depressions are very deep, yet my pinions never loved the middle air: yea I will surrender to be shut up among the dead, or in the prison of the deep, so that I may sometimes bound upwards, pierce the clouds, and look over the doors of bliss’”

CONSERVATION AND STORAGE
Those considering the placement of this Archive will find that the storage space required is smaller than one might think. For instance, the nucleus of the  collection, the Drawings and Watercolours, after being window-mounted or given card supports are stored in portfolios measuring 20 x 24 inches, or smaller. They can be contained in a shelf length of approximately four feet. The sketchbooks and Writings will take up comparatively little space, and the storage of key paintings and framed works will be decided during discussions to be held at the time of the placement.

THE DATABASE  AND  CATALOGUE RAISONNÉ
The completed text-only Database & Catalogue Raisonné of the Drawings and Paintings is an integral part of the Archive, listing 2,052 items. The RMS Trust plans to enhance this database in two ways:  a). By introducing illustrations throughout (as described above in ’Illustrating the Database’), and  b). By extending the present Database  / Catalogue Raisonné to include the ancillary archives of Writings and Architecture.

PRESERVING THE UNITY OF THE WHOLE
If the Archive as a whole has to be divided into its constituent parts in order to find safe havens, each location would be furnished with a copy of the database. Therefore, enhancing the Database to include the Writings and Architecture will mean that  RMS’s unusual inter-disciplinary achievements may be properly studied and understood, from whichever archive location they are viewed, At that stage, the whole database would be ready to put on-line by the host institution(s).

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