Biografie von Francis Hopkinson SMITH (1838-1915)

Birth place: Baltimore, MD

Death place: NYC

Addresses: NYC, 1880

Profession: Landscape painter, llustrator, writer, lecturer

Studied: self-taught

Exhibited: NAD, 1868, 1880; Brooklyn AA, 1875-84, 1891; PAFA Ann., 1879-80, 1892, 1900; Boston AC, 1880-1905; AIC, 1889-1908; Pan-Am. Expo, Buffalo, 1901 (medal); Charleston Expo, 1902 (medal); Phila. AC, 1902 (gold); AAS, 1902 (gold). Awards: Commander Order of the Mejidieh, 1898; Order of Osmanieh, 1900.

Member: AWCS (treasurer, 1873-78); Phila. AC; NIAL; SI, 1906; Cincinnati AC; Century Assn.; Tile Club

Work: CGA; Albright Art Gal., Buffalo.

Comments: After the Civil War he worked as a naval engineer with fellow artist J. Symington. They built the foundation for the Statue of Liberty and many breakwaters. By the 1880s, he had given up engineering in order to paint (a hobby until then), travel, write, and lecture. Noted especially for his watercolors and charcoal drawings, many of which appeared in his books of travel. He, Arthur Quartly and Charles Stanley Reinhart were part of an artists' colony that developed at Cold Spring Harbor, New York. Author: Col. Carter of Cartersville," "Fortunes of Oliver Horn," "American Illustrators," 1894.

Sources: G&W; DAB; CAB; Art Annual, XI1; "The Tile Club at Play," Scribner's Monthly, February, 1879; "The Tile Club Ashore," Century Magazine, February, 1882; Falk, Exh. Record Series. More recently, see Gerdts, Art Across America, vol. 1: 148; Pisano, The Long Island Landscape, 1865-1914, introduction; Campbell, New Hampshire Scenery, 150-151."