Stirling Smith Art Gallery and Museum
The Stirling Smith Art Gallery and Museum – formerly The Smith Institute – has played a very special part in the history of Stirling since its foundation in 1874. Established by the bequest of artist Thomas Stuart Smith (1815–1869) on land supplied by the Burgh of Stirling, it is an historic public-private partnership which has continued to the present day. It was founded as a gallery of mainly contemporary art, with museum and library reading room ‘for the benefit of the inhabitants of Stirling, Dunblane and Kinbuck’.
William Arthur Smith
Smith's work is represented in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C., the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., and the James A. Michener Art Museum in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, and was the subject of solo exhibitions at the Toledo Museum of Art (1942 and 1952), at Bucknell University (1952) and in foreign cities in the 1960s and 1970s. He executed an historical mural for the State of Maryland in 1968; illustrated United States postage stamps on historical subjects; authored a book about the sculptor Gerd Utescher; and produced illustrations for American magazines. From 1968 to 1973, he served a vice president on the board of directors of Pearl Buck's Welcome House.