Vincent D. Smith was born on December 12, 1929, in Bedford-Stuyvesant to Beresford Leopole Smith and Louise Etheline Todd. Both were immigrants from Barbados. Growing up in Brownsville, Brooklyn, Smith drew what he saw around him. He attended an integrated school where he studied piano and the alto sax. Smith worked a range of jobs before he became a full-time artist. At 16, he worked for the Lackawanna Railroad repairing tracks. At 17, Smith enlisted in the army and traveled with his brigade for a year. It wasn't until after his time in the army that Smith began to paint and printmaking. At 22, Smith was working in a post office where he grew to be friends with fellow artist Tom Boutis. Boutis took Smith to a Paul Cézanne show at the Museum of Modern Art in 1951. After seeing the Cézanne show, Smith resigned from his position at the post office and began reading extensively about art. He studied at the Art Students League in New York with Reginald Marsh. Later, he began to sit in on classes at the Brooklyn Museum Art School, where the instructors would let him join in on the lessons and the criticisms. After attending classes at the Brooklyn Museum Art School and the Artists League, he was accepted and received a scholarship to the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine. He studied there from 1953 to 1956. Beginning in 1954, he started taking official classes at the Brooklyn Museum Art School, also on a scholarship. He studied painting, etching, and wood prints there. In 1959, Smith won the John Hay Whitney Fellowship which allowed him to travel to the Caribbean for a year. During this year he was deeply inspired by the customs and lifestyle of the native people. Throughout his life, Smith attended various art schools but it was not until turning 50 he returned to college to earn an official degree. Smith passed away on the December 27, 2003 from lymphoma complicated by pneumonia. Smith was aged 74.