A 501(c)(3) public charity advancing contemporary art by women and artists of the Black, Asian, and Latino diasporas — aware of themselves, relentless in seeking, and fearless in becoming.
Our Mission DonateA teaching formula forged in Army classrooms — now the foundation’s framework for artist development, mentorship, and public programming.
Awareness and identity. Know the artist you are — your strengths, your gaps, your character — before you pick up the tools.
Curiosity and mastery. Relentless pursuit of the knowledge, the craft, and the mastery the work demands.
Action and transformation. Act, lead, transform. The work leaves the studio and changes the room it enters.
The Smith Family Collection gathers contemporary art by women and artists of the Black, Asian, and Latino diasporas. It is the foundation’s instrument — exhibited, loaned, and gifted to museums to build the institutional record, artist by artist.
The region’s art conversation, in long form. 19+ episodes with curators, museum directors, and working artists — a media program of the Smith Family Foundation.
Guests have included Kemper Museum chief curator Jessica Hong, internationally shown artist Amir Fallah, collection artist Kiki Serna, and Kemper executive director Jessica May. Every episode also airs as video on the ArtMoves YouTube channel.
Kevin Demery’s A Lesson Before Dying (2024) — a 66 × 36 in. assemblage of MDF, acrylic, pinewood, chain, steel butterflies, bells, garden hooks, and windchime — has entered the permanent collection of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, accession 2025.61.1-28. It is the foundation’s second placement with the museum.
Credit line: “Gift of Major Dwight Oran Smith (U.S. Army Retired)”