Explore the Era

Delve into the postwar Los Angeles art world in this online archive, which provides additional material related to the exhibitions on view at the Getty Center. Learn about hipsters and happenings, and the venues across the city where all the action took place through images from the archives and first-hand accounts with the artists.

Barbara T. Smith
Artist

Full Jar, Empty Jar performance at Art Gallery, University of California, San Diego

Full Jar, Empty Jar performance at Art Gallery, University of California, San Diego, 1974, Barbara T. Smith. © Barbara T. Smith

Barbara T. Smith, a pioneer in West Coast performance art, was born in 1931 in Pasadena, California. She studied painting, art history, and religion at Pomona College and received her MFA from the University of California, Irvine in 1971. With Nancy Buchanan, Chris Burden, and others of her cohort, Smith co-founded the student-run F-Space Gallery as a venue for experimental work that could not be staged on campus, such as Burden’s notorious Shoot (1971). Smith’s own pieces emphasized ceremony and corporeality, as in Ritual Meal (1969) and Field Piece (1971).

Historic Map Locations

Works of Art

  • Full Jar, Empty Jar performance at Art Gallery, University of California, San Diego

    Full Jar, Empty Jar performance at Art Gallery, University of California, San Diego, 1974, Barbara T. Smith. © Barbara T. Smith

Explore the Archive

  • Video: Barbara T. Smith on art schools

    Video: Learn more about the region’s network of art schools with artist Barbara T. Smith

  • Announcement, "Field Piece" at Cirrus

    Announcement for Field Piece, a Barbara T. Smith exhibition at Cirrus Gallery in Los Angeles, 1971. Computer daisy-wheel print. © Barbara T. Smith. The Getty Research Institute, Gift of Hal Glicksman, 2009.M.5.4

  • Barbara T. Smith’s artist business card

    Barbara T. Smith’s artist business card, 1970s. © Barbara T. Smith. The Getty Research Institute, Gift of Hal Glicksman, 2009.M.5.10