Barney Smith (artist)

Smith was born in Eastland, Texas on May 25, 1921.[2] His father was a plumber and his mother was a fiber artist. He attended a Bible training program at Lee University in Tennessee, and later worked for the college as a maintenance engineer. He also worked as a pastor in New Orleans, Louisiana, for a brief time before moving to San Antonio in 1961.[2]

Smith started his collection when he attached a pair of deer antlers to a toilet seat as a joke.[3] He went to a plumbing supply warehouse and took home a large number of extra or defective seats to use for more pieces of art.[1] In 1992, he opened his museum at his home.[4]

His collection of artwork included a toilet seat with pieces of the Berlin Wall, one with a piece of the Space Shuttle Challenger, and one with barbed wire from Auschwitz.[5] He also was gifted some historic toilet seats, including one that belonged to Saddam Hussein[5] and one that he said Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis used aboard an airplane.[3]

In 2017, the museum was sold at auction, with its new owner moving it to The Colony, Texas. Smith cut the ribbon on the new location in May 2019.[3]

Smith was married for 74 years to his wife, Velma Louise, who died in 2014.[1] He died on July 23, 2019, in San Antonio at the age of 98.[5]

A book about Smith's life and art, King of the Commode: Barney Smith and His Toilet Seat Art Museum, was published in 2017.[6]