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Zdzislaw Ruszcowski
I met Edwin in 1944. He was my first English friend and in those days I was very proud that I had got one. Our friendship started almost at once and I was surprised at the ease and understanding that I found in Edwin's company in spite of differences of background and my primitive English. This comfortable feeling was the result of Edwin's openmindedness and quick intelligence. His knowledge on an enormous variety of subjects was incredible. I remember that often after fruitless questions to other people, "queries in English", when sometimes they couldn't even understand what I was asking about, I thought to myself, frustrated, "Edwin will know". And indeed he always guessed immediately what I had in mind and the answer was ready. Those were the beginnings. And after - how many happy hours at our home in Rosecroft Avenue or at Olive's and Edwin's! How many occasions, suppers, children's parties, or my first one-man show, etc! All these events were unthinkable to celebrate without Olive and Edwin.
When an artist is alive and working we tend to think in terms of the future - what he will do next and what will be his future interests and development. When he is no more and only personal souvenirs and his work remain as the testimony of his personality and interests, there comes the need to assess them. Taking Edwin's life from beginning to end, it looks incredibly logical - he was trained as an architect and finished as architect. But what happened between the beginning and the end! He was painter, etcher, designer, writer, photographer, architect and many other things which haven't got ready names. In all these means of expression it was always felt Edwin's personality. But what was this personality? To me it consisted of a warm, human, intime, peaceful attitude to the aspects of everyday life. Edwin was not interested in drama, grandiosity and big generalisations. He was drawn to small objects, often purposeless, where human caprice and phantasy found expression. In those objects he was able to find elements of strangeness and by contrast or association with others created striking, humorous effects, quite close to surrealism. He was one of the first to draw attention to the beauty and charm of Victorian 'art populaire". In present days this appreciation seems to us natural, but in the nineteen-forties it was almost a discovery. Intime detail of nature or interiors, the peaceful life of cats - those were Edwin's inspirations.
All Edwin's creations were done with perfect knowledge of materials and technique and with precision of execution. As I mentioned before, Edwin was attracted by caprice, phantasy and the irrational. Is it not wonderful that in our era so dreary and purposeful Edwin was able to fulfil some of his dreams and to introduce all those tendencies into the medium of architecture - his last work included the building of follies!
From the catalogue produced
to accompany the exhibition
'Aspects of the Art of Edwin Smith' at The
Minories,
Colchester in 1974.
