Brain Drawings:
The Art of Harry Smith
Jimbo's Bop City, 1950, photograph by Hy Hirsh
The Hansell Gallery at The Philosophical Research Society
3910 Los Feliz Blvd Los Angeles, CA 90027
Exhibit Runs May 7-31, 20216
Gallery Hours: Tuesdays-Saturdays 12-6pm and by appointment ([email protected])
PRESS RELEASE
Opening Reception: Thursday, May 7, 2026
5:00-7:00pm
Free and Open to the Public
Free with RSVP
Opening Reception Panel & Multimedia Presentation:
Mind Maps: Exploring Harry Smith’s Hermetic Allusions
Thursday May 7, 2026
7:30-9:00pm in the PRS Auditorium
$15
RSVP
Brain Drawings: The Alchemy of Harry Smith invites audiences into the singular world of Harry Smith (1923–1991)—experimental filmmaker, anthropologist, musicologist, and artist—whose practice was shaped by a deep engagement with esoteric spirituality, occult traditions, and systems of hidden knowledge. Describing himself as a “shaman in residence,” Smith approached art-making as a form of inquiry, mapping correspondences between sound, image, and cosmology.
This exhibition brings together a wide-ranging selection of Smith’s work, from early experiments in visualizing sound to a rare 1954 four-color silkscreen of the Kabbalistic Tree of Life. Also on view are string figure constructions, materials related to the Anthology of American Folk Music, photographs, and rarely seen films and audio works. Archival footage—including documentation of Smith’s rooms at the Chelsea Hotel and Naropa Institute—offers an intimate view into the environments that shaped his thinking.
Both rigorous and idiosyncratic, Brain Drawings presents Smith’s practice as a sustained exploration of pattern, transformation, and meaning—an invitation to encounter a body of work that resists easy categorization and rewards close attention.
Harry Smith, First Note, Fourth Chorus, Boplicity, 1950
Harry Smith, String Figure, ca. 1960s
This exhibition and programs are presented in collaboration with the Harry Smith Archives.
harrysmitharchives.com
harrysmitharchives.com
Harry Smith, June 1984 New York City, c. Allen Ginsberg Estate
Harry Smith was one of the most complex figures of twentieth century American culture, a brilliant polymath who made major contributions to the fields of sound recording, independent filmmaking, the visual arts, hermetic philosophy, and what might be termed "outsider anthropology."
Harry Smith was born May 29, 1923, in Portland, Oregon to a family active in freemasonry and occultism. By the age of 15, Harry had spent time recording many songs and rituals of the Lummi and Samish peoples. It was in San Francisco that Smith began to build a reputation as one of the leading American experimental filmmakers. Smith developed his own methods of animation, using both stop motion collage techniques and hand-painting directly on film. Smith's films have been interpreted as investigations of conscious and unconscious mental processes. At times, Smith spoke of his films in terms of synaethesia, the search for correspondences between color and sound and sound and movement.
His 1952 Anthology of American Folk Music, released on Moe Asch's Folkways Records triggered both the folk music revival and the maturation of rock and roll. The Anthology continues to serve as a uniquely profound introduction to some of America's greatest musical traditions.
Smith's broad range of interests resulted in a number of collections. He was a collector of Seminole textiles, paper airplanes and Ukrainian Easter Eggs. At the heart of his endeavors Smith was an alchemist interested in the correspondences and fundamental truths between all things. He was a gnostic bishop in the Gnostic Catholic Church of the Ordo Templi Orientis.
Smith spent his last years 1988-1991) as "shaman in residence" at Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado. In 1991 he received a Chairman's Merit Award at the Grammy Awards ceremony for his contribution to American Folk Music. Upon receiving the award, he proclaimed, "I'm glad to say my dreams came true. I saw America changed by music."
Harry Everett Smith died at the Chelsea Hotel on November 27, 1991.
Harry Smith was born May 29, 1923, in Portland, Oregon to a family active in freemasonry and occultism. By the age of 15, Harry had spent time recording many songs and rituals of the Lummi and Samish peoples. It was in San Francisco that Smith began to build a reputation as one of the leading American experimental filmmakers. Smith developed his own methods of animation, using both stop motion collage techniques and hand-painting directly on film. Smith's films have been interpreted as investigations of conscious and unconscious mental processes. At times, Smith spoke of his films in terms of synaethesia, the search for correspondences between color and sound and sound and movement.
His 1952 Anthology of American Folk Music, released on Moe Asch's Folkways Records triggered both the folk music revival and the maturation of rock and roll. The Anthology continues to serve as a uniquely profound introduction to some of America's greatest musical traditions.
Smith's broad range of interests resulted in a number of collections. He was a collector of Seminole textiles, paper airplanes and Ukrainian Easter Eggs. At the heart of his endeavors Smith was an alchemist interested in the correspondences and fundamental truths between all things. He was a gnostic bishop in the Gnostic Catholic Church of the Ordo Templi Orientis.
Smith spent his last years 1988-1991) as "shaman in residence" at Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado. In 1991 he received a Chairman's Merit Award at the Grammy Awards ceremony for his contribution to American Folk Music. Upon receiving the award, he proclaimed, "I'm glad to say my dreams came true. I saw America changed by music."
Harry Everett Smith died at the Chelsea Hotel on November 27, 1991.
Untitled Harry Smith Hand, ca. 1977
