Ian McKenzie Smith's work shows his continuing commitment to a distinctly personal brand of landscape based abstraction, there are subtle notes of Eastern influence through the use of Japanese papers and calligraphic marks in his paintings. After travelling to Paris on a scholarship, he met the Japanese artist Kenzo Okada and encountered Zen philosophy. An oriental sense of balance has been prominent in his work ever since.
Awarded the OBE and CBE for services to art, he was director of the Aberdeen Art Gallery and Museums for thirty years, he was also the Past President of the Royal Scottish Academy, the Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolour and a former Trustee of the National Galleries of Scotland.
Works are held in collections including the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, The Government Art Collection, Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Perth Art Galleries, and in private collections in the UK, Europe, North America and Japan.