Smith grew up in Norfolk, Virginia where he received his first drawing instruction at an early age from his father, who was a naval architect. He studied at Illinois Wesleyan University, where he obtained a BFA. He received a Fulbright Fellowship upon graduation and went to Paris to study at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, École du Louvre, and the Institute d'Art et Archeologie. While in Paris, he also studied privately with Stanley William Hayter. He did graduate study at the University of Washington and also privately studied with Mark Tobey. Some of his commissions include the "Centennial Murals" at the Memorial Center at Illinois Wesleyan University and the Mural of "Mammals in World Art" in the Mammal Hall of the National Museum of Natural History. He served in Korea and later took a teaching post at The George Washington University. In 1961, he had a ten-year retrospective at the Corcoran Gallery of Art.