Jo Smail

Jo Smail (born 1943) is an American artist born and educated in Durban, South Africa. Smail emigrated to the United States in 1985.

Early life and education Smail was born and raised in Durban, South Africa. There she received a degree in English and in history. After having three children, she attended art school. She has collaborated on numerous works with the artist William Kentridge during the early years of the 2000s. Baltimore Magazine, Hyperallergic, Artforum, among other publications.

In 1996, a significant amount of her work was destroyed in a fire at her studio in the Clipper Mill Industrial Park in Baltimore.

Smail taught at the Johannesburg College of Art, the University of the Witwatersrand and at the Maryland Institute College of Art. the Johannesburg Art Museum,

Personal life Smail is married to Julien Davis, a research scientist and photographer. In 2000, she suffered a stroke and lost the ability to walk and speak. She continued to make art beginning with drawings and paintings that depicted "silence and sounds that became a new kind of language." She later regained her mobility and the ability to speak.