![\"Black](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/O.Smith-working-1-1.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nThe artist\u2019s richly detailed drawings about life and aging in prison are the subject of a museum solo show.<\/p>\n
Jul 23, 2026<\/p>\n
Updated 4:39 pm PT<\/p>\n
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Orlando Smith working on one of his pieces at San Quentin.\u00a0(Peter Merts)<\/p>\n
Orlando Smith is just starting to explain how he became an \u201cartivist,\u201d as his new exhibit<\/a> at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art<\/a> is called, when a robotic voice cuts him off: \u201cYou have one minute left.\u201d<\/p>\n Smith is an illustrator and visual journalist whose richly detailed drawings offer firsthand accounts from San Quentin State Prison, where he\u2019s been a resident for 25 years. A member of the Society of Professional Journalists, he\u2019s 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\u2019s first solo show by a currently incarcerated artist.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWhen they said SFMOMA and a solo exhibit, man, it was mind blowing,\u201d says Smith during a recent phone call, audibly still processing it. \u201cIt was just one of those achievements to where \u2014 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.\u201d<\/p>\n Galleries and museums came calling. A piece of Smith\u2019s was featured in the Oakland Museum of California\u2019s Afrofuturism<\/a> exhibit, which caught the eye of SFMOMA curator Nancy Lim.<\/p>\n \u201cEver since I first saw his work, it stayed with me,\u201d Lim says. \u201cHe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n 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\u2019s aging population. Research suggests that people over 55 \u2014 many of them sentenced for crimes they committed decades ago \u2014 have an extremely low recidivism rate, and prison reform advocates argue that they no longer pose a threat to public safety<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cLook, you have to understand that people do change and they change for the better if you give them that opportunity,\u201d Smith says.\u00a0<\/p>\n Now in his late 50s, Smith counts himself among that group. He\u2019s been in prison since 1999 for robberies he committed as a young man; under California\u2019s three-strikes law, he was sentenced to 250 years in prison. Rahsaan Thomas, whose nonprofit Empowerment Avenue<\/a> helped organize the SFMOMA exhibit, says punishments like these don\u2019t make society safer.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cCalifornia gives out life sentences like candy, and yet somebody\u2019s still gonna get robbed today,\u201d says Thomas, who once served time at San Quentin himself. \u201cWhat works is making people feel like they\u2019re part of the community. Economic empowerment.\u201d<\/p>\n In some of Smith\u2019s 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\u2019s 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<\/a> calling for his commutation has collected over 1,000 signatures.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cOrlando has no place in prison,\u201d says Christine Lashaw, who directs Empowerment Avenue\u2019s Visual Arts for Liberation program.\u00a0<\/p>\n With his exhibit poised to reach thousands of SFMOMA visitors during its year-long run, Lashaw hopes O. Smith: Artivist will challenge people\u2019s assumptions about mass incarceration.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you hear artists telling their own stories and sharing a perspective that has not been in the dominant narrative, then it connects people,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd that shifts the narrative in the mainstream.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"detailed](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/02_Orlando-Smith-Rehabilitation-Over-Punishment-2025_2000-1.jpg\")
Orlando Smith, \u2018Rehabilitation Over Punishment?,\u2019 2025.<\/p>\n![\"detailed](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/01_Orlando-Smith-Aging-Is-A-Fact-2025_2000.jpg\")
Orlando Smith, \u2018Aging Is A Fact!,\u2019 2025.<\/p>\n