Born in New York City in 1925, Smiley attended the prestigious Dalton School in New York’s Upper East Side, where she studied under two prominent artists: the well-known Mexican muralist Rufino Tamayo and the abstract expressionist Vaclav Vytlacil. Tamayo, who is considered a figural abstractionist, also taught Helen Frankenthaler at Dalton. Vaclav Vytlacil co-founded the American Abstract Artist Group, the predecessor of the New York School and Abstract Expressionism that contributed to the development and acceptance of abstract art in the United States. After Dalton School, Smiley went on to major in painting at Sarah Lawrence College where she received her Bachelor of Art degree in 1946.
