Bob Smith's Key West isn't too different from yours. Hemingway House. Salute Restaurant. Blue Heaven. Schooner Wharf. But Bob Smith doesn't just commit these interesting places to memory, he gets them down on paper. Watercolor paper, that is: Bob Smith is the local artist who sketches, then watercolor accents some of Key West's most charming architectural structures.
"I've been sketching architecture for my clients for 40 years," said Smith— a retired architect— in his slowest, Bayou drawl. "I've had lots of practice with minute detail, but now that I've committed myself to art full-time, the same old thing has an exciting twist."
In 1988, Smith sailed into Key West and "fell in love with it. You know, any artist falls in love with Key West," he said. "First it's Duval Street, then the hidden, historical parts of the island. There's a natural evolution here from the historic preservation I was involved with in my hometown of Natchitoches, Louisiana. The old buildings are fascinating and fun."
While Smith was a practicing architect in Natchitoches, he and a partner sketched and photographed all of the houses on Louisiana's National Register for Northwestern University. All those months of detailed observation shows up in his art, which, until lately, has always showcased architecture.
His fresh, fast flowing ink sketches capture the essence of place and motion in a style reminiscent of Leroy Neiman's athletic portraits. Then Smith applies a watercolor wash that highlights the passion of Key West sunsets, or the freedom of its blue skies and billowing clouds. His illustrations are masterly; his drawing technique, superb.
"You have to know how to draw really well to break the rules of perspective the way I do," said the artist who, except for the engineering classes at LSU necessary for his degree in architecture, has never taken an art class. Because Smith only sells color prints of his artwork, he has coined a phrase for his original ink and individually water-colored scenes, which he converts to silk-screens then stores at his houseboat art studio in Marathon: "water screens."
With the growth automatically spawned through the full-time commitment to art, Smith's visuals have evolved into less detailed, overall structures by zeroing in on segments or sections of a building. His developing style has the Impressionists' penchant for quicker action and softer edges.
These days, the architecture is still there, but the scenes are insti-slices of Key West's color in tandem with its history. The characters and native wild life, such as roosters and parrots and cats, are becoming as prominent as its architecture. In short, his work is coming to life.
"Who else but Bob Smith would draw a picture of a cat, with its leg lifted, licking itself?" says KWTN Publisher Dennis Cooper, who has published "Bob Smith's Key West" weekly since 1997. "His art distinctly lends itself to Key West's whimsy."
Bob Smith's art may be distinct, but the artist, Robert Neil Smith, says he has an image problem: "Bob Smiths are everywhere. There's a guy in Fort Lauderdale with a driver's license exactly like mine. Our name is the same, including middle name. Our birth date is the same, right down to the same year," said Smith.
"Only our social security numbers are different, which I had to put on my license to distinguish me from him."
Then there's Bob Smith the zany Key West author who wrote the book about "Bob", by Bob (amazon.com). I suspect only Tom Jones is more Omni-present than Bob Smith.
Of course, there's no question about which Bob illustrates Key West with a skill and style uniquely suited to his own personal history. Bob Smith's prints are carried locally at Gecko Roamin', Kennedy Gallery and Wyndam Casa Marina's gift shop.