National Gallery of Australia director Ron Radford remembered artist Jeffrey Smart as one of the central figures of the nation's 20th century art scene, and a personal friend.
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The NGA features 19 of Smart's works including Wallaroo (1951) and Corrugated Gioconda (1976), which Dr Radford said were considered centrepieces of the collection.
''Throughout his life, [Smart] was very much a hard worker. Every morning he would go to the studio to paint, as a sort of rite, and he really only gave up painting a year or so ago, saying he had done his life's work.''
Dr Radford said the 1946 work Holiday Resort from the collection of the Art Gallery of South Australia would be featured in the forthcoming exhibition of Australian artworks at London's Royal Academy of Arts.
''The inclusion of this nostalgic work from Jeffrey Smart's oeuvre will ensure that international audiences continue to experience the unique and timeless creative vision of a truly great Australian artist,'' he said.
Smart made annual visits to Australia to see family and friends and attend exhibitions, and kept a close connection with this country.
Dr Radford said Smart's works were not of particularly Australian or European settings.
''I think they are much more about the urban landscape in a very international sense,'' he said. ''His works are paintings of designs and of the urban environment rather than being of Australia or Italy or anywhere else.''
Drawings and paintings by Smart have been included in numerous NGA travelling exhibitions and permanent collection displays.
Dr Radford said Wallaroo was included in the touring exhibition Ocean to Outback: Australian landscape painting 1850-1950, which toured capital cities and regional centres from 2007 until 2009.
He said the gallery would seek to expand its collection of Smart works and would continue to lend works from the permanent collection to retrospectives and other exhibitions.
