Eric Smith was born in 1932 in St Andrew, Kingston, Jamaica. He attended both the DaCosta Institute Kingston and the Jamaica School of Art.
One of Jamaica’s prominent artists, having had earlier tutelage from the highly accomplished painter Albert Huie, he rose to fame as one of Jamaica’s well known and revered artists. 
His first interests were in portraits but later in his career he devoted the majority of his paintings to landscapes and florals.