Patti Smith (born 1946, Chicago, USA) began as a visual artist and has been making drawings and taking photographs since the late 1960s. In recent years, her practice has expanded to include installation, such as Camera Solo, a survey of her photographs, organized by the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art (2011), which travelled to Detroit Institute of Arts (2012) and the Art Gallery of Ontario (2013).
In 2008, Smith was the subject of Patti Smith Land 250 at the Fondation Cartier pour L’Art Contemporain, Paris, and Written Portrait – Patti Smith at Artium Centro-Museo Vasco de Arte Contemporáneo, Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain. Strange Messenger: The Work of Patti Smith, a three hundred-work retrospective, was organized by The Andy Warhol Museum in 2002 and traveled to numerous venues including the Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, and the Museum Boijsman Van Beuningen, Rotterdam. Her work has also been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Museum Eki, Kyoto; Haus der Kunst, Munich; Triennale di Milano, Milan; Palais des Beaux Arts, Brussels and the Pompidou Center in Paris.
Just Kids, a memoir of Smith's relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe during the late sixties and seventies in New York, won her the 2010 National Book Award. Her 1975 album Horses, established her as one of most original and important musicians of her generation and has been followed by ten studio albums, including Radio Ethiopia; Easter; Dream of Life; Gone Again, Trampin', and Banga, her latest. She continues to perform throughout the world and in 2007 was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In July of 2005, she was presented with the prestigious insignia of Commander of the Order of the Arts and Letters, France's highest cultural honor.
