UB Remembers Bert Smith, Award-Winning Professor of Graphic Arts
November 19, 2019
Contact: Office of Government and Public Affairs
Phone: 410.837.5739
The University of Baltimore community is remembering Bert Smith, M.A. '85, long-time professor of graphic design and a much-beloved mentor and supporter of UB students and alumni.
Smith, who retired from the University in 2012 after teaching for more than 25 years, died on Oct. 24 at his home in Virginia.
While at UB, Prof. Smith developed a reputation as a professor with high standards for both himself and his students. He encouraged creativity in every detail of every assignment, and found beauty and resonance in the everyday—penny postcards, handcut letterpress fonts, and images of mythic figures like Santa Claus culled from vintage advertising.
In 1996, Smith and his wife, Anthea Smith, began a series of collaborative books featuring old postcards. Their titles included Greetings from Baltimore, Down the Ocean: Postcards from Maryland and Delaware Beaches (1999) and A Day on the Bay: Postcard Views of the Chesapeake Bay (2001).
Among his many accolades, in 2004 Prof. Smith and his colleague, Amy Pointer, shared an American Graphic Design Award for excellence in communication and graphic design for a poster Pointer designed and Smith illustrated to publicize the University's master's program in creative writing and publishing arts. Prof. Kendra Kopelke, then-director of the master's in fine arts program in creative writing and publishing arts, assisted with the poster.
"Bert was one of the first people at UB to teach me how to use my eyes and look at a picture, and see it for its rich potential," Kopelke recalled. "I learned about rhythm in books, making a book's pages feel like music. These are essential things that have informed my entire adult life and I always treasure that time that he helped me to develop those skills. My life has been deeply enriched by working with him. He was a generous and giving teacher to both his colleagues and his students. I will forever see his immaculate fingernail, move along an image, showing us exactly where to trim."
Marion Winik, associate professor in the Klein Family School of Publications Design, recalled, "When I first started at UB in 2007, Bert's office was next door to mine and that led to a collaboration—my students wrote brief front-of-the-book articles about businesses in the UB area, and his students designed and created a magazine section with them. It was fun, and quite impressive. What a friendly and enthusiastic colleague he was."
Many of Smith's students are remembering Prof. Smith's influence on their lives and careers.
"One of my very favorite professors, wrote Barby Tee on Twitter. "Grateful to have been his student."
"Such a special person," wrote Ashley Pound on Twitter. "Bert was a friend and a mentor long after I graduated. He and Anthea have met a lot to me."
"I was in the master's program when my dad passed away and I wanted to quit the program," wrote Nabilah Pape on Twitter. "I absolutely had no motivation to keep going. He pushed me, counseled and motivated me to keep going. I'm so thankful he was my instructor and friend."
Read more about Prof. Smith in his obituary in The Baltimore Sun.