The artist’s richly detailed drawings about life and aging in prison are the subject of a museum solo show.
Jul 23, 2026
Updated 4:39 pm PT
Orlando Smith working on one of his pieces at San Quentin. (Peter Merts)
Orlando Smith is just starting to explain how he became an “artivist,” as his new exhibit at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is called, when a robotic voice cuts him off: “You have one minute left.”
Smith is an illustrator and visual journalist whose richly detailed drawings offer firsthand accounts from San Quentin State Prison, where he’s been a resident for 25 years. A member of the Society of Professional Journalists, he’s been published in the Columbia Journalism Review and has exhibited his art in dozens of galleries, universities and museums. O. Smith: Artivist at SFMOMA, opening to the public July 25, will be the museum’s first solo show by a currently incarcerated artist.
“When they said SFMOMA and a solo exhibit, man, it was mind blowing,” says Smith during a recent phone call, audibly still processing it. “It was just one of those achievements to where — especially in my position, right? I live in a concrete box, you know? So it brought to mind that whatever you work for and you work hard, you can achieve.”
Orlando Smith, ‘Rehabilitation Over Punishment?,’ 2025.
Galleries and museums came calling. A piece of Smith’s was featured in the Oakland Museum of California’s Afrofuturism exhibit, which caught the eye of SFMOMA curator Nancy Lim.
“Ever since I first saw his work, it stayed with me,” Lim says. “He has such a rare clarity, a voice and conviction and this really rare combination of artistry and research. And I felt very compelled to see those works in concentration and density.”
Four years later, Smith is not only getting his SFMOMA solo show, but the museum also acquired several of his pieces for its collection. His more recent work shines a light on San Quentin’s aging population. Research suggests that people over 55 — many of them sentenced for crimes they committed decades ago — have an extremely low recidivism rate, and prison reform advocates argue that they no longer pose a threat to public safety.
“Look, you have to understand that people do change and they change for the better if you give them that opportunity,” Smith says.
Now in his late 50s, Smith counts himself among that group. He’s been in prison since 1999 for robberies he committed as a young man; under California’s three-strikes law, he was sentenced to 250 years in prison. Rahsaan Thomas, whose nonprofit Empowerment Avenue helped organize the SFMOMA exhibit, says punishments like these don’t make society safer.
“California gives out life sentences like candy, and yet somebody’s still gonna get robbed today,” says Thomas, who once served time at San Quentin himself. “What works is making people feel like they’re part of the community. Economic empowerment.”
Orlando Smith, ‘Aging Is A Fact!,’ 2025.
In some of Smith’s comics, he opens up about his personal evolution from the young man he once was. Now he dedicates his time to serving others, both as a journalist and as an arts educator inside San Quentin. He’s contributed protest posters to social justice organizations like the Ella Baker Center and used his art to raise money for breast cancer treatment. A Change.org petition calling for his commutation has collected over 1,000 signatures.
“Orlando has no place in prison,” says Christine Lashaw, who directs Empowerment Avenue’s Visual Arts for Liberation program.
With his exhibit poised to reach thousands of SFMOMA visitors during its year-long run, Lashaw hopes O. Smith: Artivist will challenge people’s assumptions about mass incarceration.
“When you hear artists telling their own stories and sharing a perspective that has not been in the dominant narrative, then it connects people,” she says. “And that shifts the narrative in the mainstream.”
‘O Smith: Artivist’ is on view at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (151 3rd St., San Francisco) July 25, 2026–June 20, 2027.