River Dragon
The Whisperers
For more than six decades, Leo R. Smith III has created sculpture and paintings inspired by the landscape, stories, creatures, and imaginative life of the Upper Mississippi River.
For more than six decades, Leo R. Smith III has created sculpture and paintings inspired by the landscape, stories, creatures, and imaginative life of the Upper Mississippi River.
A concentrated selection showing Smith’s range in carved and polychromed wood, bronze, relief, assemblage, and mixed media—works in which river material, human form, animal life, and mythology repeatedly meet.
A curated selection tracing Leo R. Smith III’s Mississippi River world—from observed landscape and river life to figures, spirits, memory, mythology, and transformation.
Leo R. Smith III is an American sculptor and painter whose six-decade career has grown out of a lifelong relationship with the Upper Mississippi River.
Born in Winona, Minnesota, in 1947, Smith has spent most of his life near the river. Its bluffs and backwaters, wildlife and weather, ancient stone, working boats, people, stories, and mysteries have become the vocabulary of his art.
Smith began exhibiting his work while still a young man. He attended Winona State University and, in 1972, apprenticed with sculptor Konstantinos Papadakis in Minneapolis. Over the decades his practice has expanded across carved and polychromed wood, bronze, painting, relief, architectural carving, assemblage, mixed media, and large public commissions.
In 2005, the Minnesota Marine Art Museum acquired approximately 400 works representing a major body of Smith’s earlier career and his long artistic collaboration with Marilyn Smith. Rather than marking an endpoint, the acquisition preceded another two decades of intensive work. Smith continues to create at his studio near Homer, Minnesota, producing sculpture and paintings in which the observed world of the Mississippi meets memory, mythology, humor, and imagination.
Born 1947, Winona, Minnesota · Lives and works along the Upper Mississippi River near Winona, Minnesota.
Winona State University, Winona, Minnesota — attended
1972 — Apprenticeship with Konstantinos Papadakis, Minneapolis, Minnesota
1967–1969 — United States Army, Medical Corpsman
1966 — One Man Show, Market Gallery, Winona, Minnesota — Solo Exhibition
1967 — 7 Young Artists, St. Mary’s College, Winona, Minnesota — Group Exhibition
1979 — College of St. Teresa, Winona, Minnesota — Two-Person Exhibition
1980 — Groveland Gallery, Minneapolis, Minnesota — Solo Exhibition
1980 — Inch Art, Rochester Art Center, Rochester, Minnesota — Group Exhibition
1983 — McFall Center Gallery, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, Ohio — Group Exhibition
1986–1991 — Joanne Lyon Gallery, Aspen, Colorado — Group Exhibitions
1986–1989 — Elaine Horwitch Gallery, Santa Fe, New Mexico — Group Exhibitions
1987 — Governor’s Executive Office Invitational Show, Wisconsin State Capitol, Madison, Wisconsin — Group Exhibition
1990 — John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan, Wisconsin — Group Exhibition
1991 — Extraordinary Figures: Folk Carvings by Leo R. Smith III, Paine Art Center, Oshkosh, Wisconsin — Solo Exhibition, April 14–July 7
1991 — Katie Gingrass Gallery, Milwaukee, Wisconsin — Group Exhibition
2002 — Christmas at the Pabst Mansion, Captain Frederick Pabst Mansion, Milwaukee, Wisconsin — Special Holiday Exhibition; work by Leo R. Smith III prominently featured alongside Christopher Radko.
2002 — Paine Art Center, Oshkosh, Wisconsin — Solo Exhibition
2005 — Lillian Davis Hogan Galleries, Saint Mary’s University, Winona, Minnesota — Solo Exhibition
2007 — Our Town, Our River, Minnesota Marine Art Museum, Winona, Minnesota — Leo & Marilyn Smith
2009–2010 — Dashing Through the Snow: The 2009 Leo Smith Folk Art Seasonal Exhibit, Minnesota Marine Art Museum, Winona, Minnesota — Annual holiday and seasonal sculpture exhibition; on view through January 9, 2010; documented by the Winona Post.
2010 — Life on the River, Minnesota Marine Art Museum, Winona, Minnesota — Leo Smith exhibition; documented in the artist’s MMAM exhibition history.
2013–2014 — The Four Seasons: Leo & Marilyn Smith Folk Art, Minnesota Marine Art Museum, Winona, Minnesota — November 1, 2013–March 2, 2014
2016 — The Hand of the River: Works by Moira Bateman and Leo Smith III, Minnesota Marine Art Museum, Winona, Minnesota — April 29–August 21
2016 — McKnight Foundation Gallery, Minneapolis, Minnesota — Two-Person Exhibition
2016 — Red Horse Gallery, Fountain City, Wisconsin — Group Exhibition
2016 — University of Wisconsin–La Crosse, La Crosse, Wisconsin — Solo Exhibition
2018 — Leo and Marilyn Smith Retrospective, Minnesota Marine Art Museum, Winona, Minnesota — January 12–April 15
2021 — Leo & Marilyn Smith Holiday Folk Art Collection, Minnesota Marine Art Museum, Winona, Minnesota
St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church, St. Charles, Minnesota — Large figurative relief sculpture listing church donors.
Paine Art Center and Gardens, Oshkosh, Wisconsin — Gothic Gallery architectural carving; pierced carved beams, arches and family crests.
St. Paul Catholic Church, Tampa, Florida — Last Supper relief mural.
Blue Cross Blue Shield HMO, Lansing, Michigan — relief mural.
Winona Flood Wall, Winona, Minnesota — approximately 600-foot relief mural cast in concrete; wood master associated with Saint Mary’s University.
Blackwolf Run, Wisconsin — carved mask.
Gundersen Lutheran Oncology Center, La Crosse, Wisconsin — Tree of Life & Dance Wheel.
Winona Health, Winona, Minnesota — Mother & Child sculpture, Boyer Lounge.
Delta Queen Steamboat Company — Steamboatin’ paddle boat marketed via Delta Queen Company.
Minnesota Marine Art Museum, Winona, Minnesota — major institutional holdings of work by Leo and Marilyn Smith; the museum’s early exhibitions and programs featured works from the collection.
1977 — Wisconsin Artists Working in the Arts Grant, Wisconsin Arts Board
1989 — National Endowment for the Arts / Arts Midwest Regional Arts Fellowship
Ward World Championship Wildfowl Competition — Judge, Interpretive Category; invited to serve as a judge by Ralph Bufano.
1991–1998 — Midwest of Cannon Falls — reproduced and marketed sculpture designs
1999–2001 — Department 56 — reproduced and marketed sculpture designs
2002–2004 — EFY — reproduced and marketed sculpture designs
2003–2005 — Leo Smith Folk Art, Fountain City, Wisconsin — reproduced and marketed sculpture designs
2005–2009 — Minnesota Marine Art Museum, Winona, Minnesota — reproduced and marketed sculpture designs
Collaborative credit: Marilyn Smith painted and finished many of the carved folk-art works and collaborated on color development and final interpretation.
1966 — Winona Sunday News — profile/announcement of Leo Smith’s one-man Market Gallery exhibition
1987 — News Graphic Pilot — “Folk art event is April 24-26”
1988 — Kin to the River, Jeffrey Russell, Wisconsin Trails Magazine — feature on Leo and Marilyn Smith and their Mississippi River work
1989 — High Visibility, Arts Midwest — Leo R. Smith III featured as an Arts Midwest fellowship recipient. Publication includes Uncle Sam, 1989
1991 — Paine Art Center publication — Extraordinary Figures: Folk Carvings by Leo R. Smith III
2004 — The Spirit of Winona: Leo and Marilyn Smith — Folk Artists, Parts 1 & 2, Hiawatha Broadband Communications
2004 — “Mr. & Mrs. Smith Carve Santas,” Better Homes and Gardens: Santa Claus Collection, Vol. 6, Meredith Books, Des Moines, Iowa
2006 — The Spirit of the Heartland: Arts — Marine Art Museum, Hiawatha Broadband Communications
2009 — Winona Post — “Leo Smith holiday folk art collection at Marine Art Museum,” documenting Dashing Through the Snow and the museum’s annual presentation of Leo Smith holiday and seasonal sculpture.
2010 — Leo Smith … The Museum … and the Muse — film/video by Jay Lurie
2012 — KSMQ Public Service Media, Off 90 — artist profile; subsequently nominated for an Upper Midwest Regional Emmy
2012 — “River Dreams in Wood: Leo and Marilyn Smith,” Big River Magazine, March–April 2012, Pamela Eyden
Leo R. Smith III is an American sculptor and painter whose career spans more than six decades. His work encompasses carved and polychromed wood sculpture, bronze, painting, relief carving, architectural work, found natural forms, and mixed media. The Upper Mississippi River and Driftless landscape have remained enduring sources of imagery, material, history, humor, and mythology throughout his career. His exhibition history extends from a documented 1966 one-man show in Winona through major museum presentations at the Paine Art Center and a sustained series of exhibitions at the Minnesota Marine Art Museum, including Our Town, Our River (2007), Dashing Through the Snow (2009–2010), Life on the River (2010), The Four Seasons (2013–2014), The Hand of the River (2016), and the Leo and Marilyn Smith Retrospective (2018).
Leo R. Smith III
American Sculptor and Painter
Homer, Minnesota · Upper Mississippi River
For museum exhibitions, gallery representation, acquisitions, research, and other professional inquiries, please contact:
Marilyn Smith
Studio & Artist Contact
marilyn.smith.mn@gmail.com