Laura Smith was appointed Curator of Whitechapel Gallery in February 2018, where amongst several projects she worked on the first UK survey show for Elmgreen & Dragset and the exhibition on Helen Cammock who won the 2017-19 Max Mara Art Prize for Women and was a co-winner of the 2019 Turner Prize. Prior to the Whitechapel Gallery, Laura was Curator at Tate St Ives, where she was responsible for a series of international historic and contemporary projects by artists including Rebecca Warren, Jessica Warboys, Linder, Marlow Moss, R.H. Quaytman, Bridget Riley, Lucy Stein, Nashashibi/Skaer, as well as group exhibitions such as Virginia Woolf: An Exhibition Inspired by Her Writings (2018), Turner Prize 2016 (2016) and Images Moving Out onto Space (2015).
Laura writes extensively on modern and contemporary art. Most recently she has contributed a chapter to Oxford University Press' Virginia Woolf Reader on Woolf's influence on the visual arts, an essay on Lisa Brice to accompany her solo exhibition at Stephen Friedman Gallery, and a forthcoming monograph on Eileen Agar — soon to be published by Eiderdown Books.