Smith, Jori, 1907-2005 : Jori Smith was born in 1907 in Montreal, of Irish parentage. After beginning her art studies at the Art Association of Montreal in 1922, she enrolled at L'École des beaux-arts in 1923, where she won several prizes including the Prix du directeur, Prix du ministre for best student and the Prix exceptionnel for general proficiency, before leaving in 1928. She met Jean Palardy in 1929 and they married in 1930. Together they formed a short-lived commercial art company, JANS, with Jean-Paul Lemieux. Smith shared Palardy's interest in Quebec folk customs and artefacts and during the thirties and forties they travelled extensively throughout the province, particularly in the county of Charlevoix, where they were often joined by ethnologist Marius Barbeau.
Smith began exhibiting at the Art Association of Montreal spring exhibitions in 1928 and continued to do so until 1934. In 1937, she had a solo show at the Picture Loan Society in Toronto. In 1938, Smith was a founding (and only woman) member of the Eastern Group of Painters, with John Lyman, Goodridge Roberts, Jack Humphrey, Alexander Bercovitch and Eric Goldberg. In 1939, she and Jean Palardy became members, along with Paul-Emile Borduas, Fritz Brandtner, Philip Surrey and others, of the Contemporary Arts Society, founded by Lyman to bring together French and English artists interested in modernism. In 1941, she exhibited at the Première Exposition des Indépendants organized by Père M.-A. Couturier in Quebec and Montreal.
In 1940, Smith and Palardy bought a house in Petite-Rivière, where their neighbours included Jean-Paul Lemieux and Gabrielle Roy. Other friends in Montreal were Marian and Frank Scott, Philip and Margaret Day Surrey, Patrick Anderson, P.K. Page, and other members of the little magazine 'Preview' group. Jori Smith travelled extensively throughout her life, beginning with trips to England, France and Spain with Jean Palardy in 1934-35. She spent part of 1946 painting in Haiti, on a grant from the Quebec government, and part of it in France. Throughout the 1950s, Smith, sometimes in the company of Palardy, travelled and painted in Europe frequently. In 1955, she won the Jessie Dow Prize for best painting at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts spring show. In 1957, Smith and Palardy, who went on to pursue a career as a filmmaker and historian, separated. Smith continued to paint and travel, moving from Montreal to Senneville, Quebec, in 1966 and back to Montreal in 1987. In 1988, she received an honorary degree from Concordia University. Retrospectives of her work were held at the Dominion Gallery in Montreal in 1993 and at the Leonard and Bina Ellen Art Gallery at Concordia in 1997. Her memoir of life in Charlevoix County with Jean Palardy, 'Charlevoix County 1930', was published in 1998 and was nominated for a QSPELL award.
Jori Smith passed away in Montreal on November 12, 2005.
