Patti Smith
Writer, performer, and visual artist
Patti Smith is a writer, performer, and visual artist. She gained recognition in the 1970s for her revolutionary merging of poetry and rock. She formed the Patti Smith Group in 1974, and she has released twelve albums over the decades, including Horses, which has been hailed as one of the top one hundred albums of all time by Rolling Stone. She is widely considered one the most influential figures in the New York punk rock movement.
Ms. Smith had her first exhibit of drawings at the Gotham Book Mart in 1973, and she was represented by the Robert Miller Gallery for three decades. Her retrospective exhibitions include Pittsburgh’s Andy Warhol Museum, the Fondation Cartier in Paris, and the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Connecticut.
Ms. Smith’s New York Times bestselling memoir Just Kids documents her early years in 1970’s Manhattan and her close relationship with the acclaimed photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. Just Kids won the 2010 National Book Award for Nonfiction. Other books include Wītt, Babel, Woolgathering, The Coral Sea, Auguries of Innocence, M Train, and Devotion.
In 2005, the French Ministry of Culture awarded Ms. Smith the title of Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres, the highest honor given to an artist by the French Republic. She was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2007.