BRAIN DRAWINGS: THE ART OF HARRY SMITH
The Hansell Gallery at The Philosophical Research Society
3910 Los Feliz Blvd Los Angeles, CA 90027
Opening Reception
Thursday, May 7, 2026 5-7pm
Free and Open to the Public
Opening Reception Panel & Multimedia Presentation
Mind Maps: Exploring Harry Smith’s Hermetic Allusions
Thursday May 7, 2026
7:30-9:00 in the PRS Auditorium
Exhibit Runs May 7-May 31, 2026
Gallery Hours: Tuesdays-Saturdays 12-6pm and by appointment (info@prs.org)
Brain Drawings: The Art 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.
This exhibition is curated by Rani Singh, Director at Harry Smith Archives, in collaboration with PRS.
harrysmitharchives.com
https://www.prs.org/brain-drawings-the-art-of-harry-smith.html
