1924 - 2000 - Keith Cornock Smith had a passion for nature and its wild and beautiful places. The North American landscape inspired him for years. His striking canvases show us a world of rugged peaks, mountain lakes and snow swept valleys. K.C.’s paintings draw the viewer in, inspiring the awe that one feels when first seeing a mist covered mountain lake at sunrise, or the majesty of an elk, suddenly aware of your presence, pausing briefly before slipping into the cover of the forest. Keith (1924 - 2000) spent his life traveling the backcountry of British Columbia, Alberta and the western United States, learning his craft and creating paintings that met his standards. K.C. described himself as a painter not an artist. The standards he used came from long experience, and the ability to know when a painting wasn’t working, abandon it and start over. Keith’s greatest influences were Carl Rungius, who he met in Banff, Alberta in 1954, and the Canadian Group of Seven, but Keith was an individual with a style all his own. When a painting was right, when he was satisfied with it, he said it had “power and guts”. Becoming a landscape painter and knowing when a painting was right took a lifetime. Keith was born in Dauphin, Manitoba, in 1924 and spent his early years in Depression era British Columbia. The Depression gave him a deeper appreciation for when things were going well. This positive outlook is also what kept him painting. His paintings were about “putting down in paint the things that are important” to him. Wilderness inspired him from the beginning, ever since his childhood days collecting arrowheads around Vancouver, British Columbia. He sketched mountain landscape while he worked as a camp cook for a trail guide outfit, and his love of the great outdoors inspired him to join one of the first environmentalist groups; The League of Conservationists. He later worked as a Park Naturalist in British Columbia, which allowed him to further indulge his passion for nature, honing his craft of capturing wildlife and scenes as he saw them.