It isn't often that a single figure makes as pivotal a contribution to as many seemingly disparate areas as did Harry Smith. And perhaps it's even less often that such a figure sinks into such relative obscurity as had Smith until recently. As an experimental filmmaker, his work inspired, among others, Andy Warhol and Kenneth Anger, and laid the foundations of the psychedelic lightshow (the original Grateful Dead lightshow used Harry's old equipment). He was a talented and original painter, although much of his work is lost (an unpaid landlord consigned a huge quantity to landfill). As a collector, his archive of paper aeroplanes was so definitive the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum sent a special courier for it when he donated it in the 1980s.