John Holt Smith was born in Fort Worth, Texas in 1968. He began painting under the tutelage of Fort Worth painter Nancy Lamb at the age of four. After finishing high school in Fort Worth, Smith moved west and graduated with a B.F.A. from the University of California at Santa Barbara. While at UCSB, Smith worked closely with artist Ann Hamilton on exhibits she produced, including an exhibit at The National Gallery in Washington D.C. and The Spoleto Festival in Charleston, South Carolina. He also studied art and art history in Florence, Italy during a year of study abroad.

After graduating from UCSB, Smith moved to New York where he again pursued collaborative efforts in a variety of media with the Fiona Templeton Group, a collective of artists, performers and poets. The group put on shows at the Capp Street Project in San Francisco and The New Museum in New York. Smith continued to live and work and exhibit in New York for seven years.

Smith returned to Fort Worth in 1997, to be close to his family and set up his studio there. Soon after returning to Texas Smith completed his first public work on a grand scale: a twenty by sixty foot reproduction of one of his SWIM paintings, which was displayed on the side of the Gideon/Toal building in Fort Worth, Texas. He is currently working on a large-scale public work for the International Terminal at DFW airport. The 8x30 foot painting will be completed in April 2005 for the opening of the terminal.