Ira C. Smith, Leather Artist

Ira C. Smith is an accomplished artist whose erotic pencil drawings have graced the pages of virtually every gay male or leather/SM/fetish publication. The immortal Tom of Finland, just before his death, wrote Ira that “I am happy to have you following in my footsteps.” Born and raised in New York, Smith graduated from the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT). Originally an interior designer, he did not become an erotic artist until 1990, when he began his new career “on a dare.”

“I had no formal training,” Ira Smith told me during a conversation we held at the Fort Lauderdale home of his partner, Eric Lawrence. “One day I saw an illustration in an advertisement. I thought it was done very poorly and I said I could do it better. And some one said, ‘why don’t you?.’ So it was a challenge and I did it.” Though Smith’s leather art has been compared to the works of Tom of Finland, Etienne, Rex and the Hun, Ira admits that “I didn’t have any inspiration, really. I didn’t know any of them until after I started doing my art. Rembrandt is my favorite artist,” he adds.

Unlike the well-defined men of Tom of Finland, there is no particular Ira C. Smith “type.” “I would like to think that none of my work is repetitious. Each subject is individual and each physique is unique. I don’t have a type. I actually draw what I see. I don’t make up anything. I have to see it to be able to draw it. I base it on real people.” He adds that “I prefer working from photos that I take, so I can actually say that it’s based on my own work. Whereas when I first started I would use photos from magazines and change them.”

Ira’s Web site (IraCSmith.com), lists the various types of subjects that he draws: Keyholes, Bondage, Sex, Men, Women, Leather, Butts and Angels. Though the artist admits a preference for Butts - “I am an ass and chest man.” he smiles - I was personally enchanted by Ira’s Angels and asked him about them. “I am fascinated by feathers and I wanted to incorporate them into my drawings and angels seem to be the perfect opportunity. And I have one of an angel from behind where I actually use pelican wings for the wings.” Another unique set of Smith pieces are his Keyhole drawings, which he admits “was a quick way to end the drawing without doing more work. But I did it to images that would work for being a voyeur. Like looking through,” a keyhole.

As I mentioned before, Ira C. Smith has contributed his pencil drawings to a wide variety of gay and leathersex publications. Most of the time they serve to illustrate a story published by that magazine. As Ira tells me, the publications “would send me the story, telling me how many illustrations they need. I have to read the story and pick out the description of each character” in order to create a proper illustration. It is to his credit that his drawings can stand on their own, independently of the stories that they were drawn for.

In addition to his magazine work, Ira C. Smith produces prints that grace many a private collection. They are also on display at the Leather Archives and Museum in Chicago, the Leslie Lohman Gay Art Foundation in New York, and the Tom of Finland Foundation in Los Angeles. Smith prints have been exhibited and sold at the Castro Street Fair and Folsom Street Fair in San Francisco, Folsom Fair North in Toronto, the International Mister Leather contest in Chicago and the Leather SIR/Leather boy contests in Atlanta, just to name a few venues. Ira’s prints are also available for sale through his Web site and in shoppes of distinction like Daddy’s Closet in Wilton Manors. The prints are signed and matted, with plastic wrapping around it and a hanger on the back.

Smith also does individual portraits, including commissions. Though most of his models are generally unknowns (to us anyway), they include a few celebrities. One of them, Ira tells me, “was Chad Hunt, the porn star. He was very nice, very intelligent. He made me feel at ease. He did everything I asked. He wasn’t in any rush and it was a great shoot and I did the drawing from the photos that I had taken of him. And we auctioned it off at a place called the Lure Bar in New York City and the money went to charity.” As if all this was not enough, Ira has also produced greeting cards, t-shirts, posters and a calendar, none of which, alas, are currently in print. Surprisingly enough, in this day and age, Smith only had to deal with censorship once, “when I had a show in Oklahoma. The event was private but I had to put post-its on all the private parts of my illustrations.”

A few months ago, Ira C. Smith traveled to Fort Lauderdale for a Leather SIR/Leather boy event, where he met local businessman and activist Eric Lawrence. Now life partners, the two men commute back and forth between New York and Fort Lauderdale. Eric now works to further Ira’s career, using his contacts in the gay and kinky communities to publicize and sell his partner’s work. On March 10-12 the couple will travel to Jacksonville, where Ira will showcase his work at the Erotic Cultural Conference. Both Eric and Ira are planning big things for Ira’s future. “Ira is going to be going into a very serious mode,” Eric tells me, “creating new art work.” With such encouragement, Ira C. Smith is sure to go far.