Elizabeth Jenkins
Edwin met you without prejudice, eager to understand and sympathize. He was capable of righteous indignation, but unless that were aroused, his attitude was one of radiant sympathy. You could tell him a story of someone he didn't know, and he listened to it as if it were about a dear friend. I told him that a family had had great trouble in placing out kittens, because the child of the house couldn't bear them to be drowned; I've never forgotten the amused, tender, vigorous tone in which he exclaimed: "Of course not, poor little darling!"
His genial tolerance, and charity like that of some witty medieval saint, was surprisingly combined with the severity of his standards in matters of work. I only once saw him taking photographs: it was like looking at another man; his face wore a stern, rapt look, he preserved a total silence; his concentration reminded one of the top when it is spinning so hard, it appears to be motionless.
Humanity and the devotion to work of an artist, I would think of as his leading characteristics, but his spirit seemed to embrace the whole of creation. Everyone knew of his love for animals. In his last months I had a letter from him in which he said he liked to put his arms round trees, hoping they felt for him something of what he felt for them. He felt so much and gave so much, to such effect, that he is giving it still.
From the catalogue produced
to accompany the exhibition
'Aspects of the Art of Edwin Smith' at The
Minories,
Colchester in 1974.
