biografía de William Russell SMITH (1812-1896)

Lugar de nacimiento: Glasgow, Scotland

Lugar de defunción: Glenside, PA (near Philadelphia)

Direcciones: Pittsburgh, PA, 1822-35; Philadelphia, PA, and area, from 1835

Profesión: Scenic and panoramic artist, portrait and landscape painter

Estudios: James Reid Lambdin, Pittsburgh, PA, c.1828-30

Exposiciones: PAFA Ann., 1834, 1847-89; Artists Fund Soc., 1835-45; Boston Athenaeum, 1842, 1852; Apollo Assn., Phila., 1838-40; Am. Artists Union, 1838-48; Centennial Exhib., Phila., 1876; AIC, 1945; Baltimore MA, 1945; Univ. Pittsburgh, 1948; Vose Gal., Boston, 1977 (solo), 1979 (with son Xanthus Smith)

Asociaciones: PAFA (board); Artists Fund Soc., 1836.

Obra: Westmoreland County Mus. of Art, Greensburg, PA; CI; Hist. Soc. of Western Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh; Historical Soc. Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.

Comentarios: Baptized William Thompson Russell Smith (and known professionally as William Russell Smith and Russell Smith), he emigrated with his parents to western Pennsylvania in 1819, settling with them in Pittsburgh about 1822. When his teacher James Reid Lambdin traveled south in 1830, Smith ran Lambdin's Pittsburgh Museum and Gallery of the Fine Arts. In 1832 he established himself as a portraitist, but turned to scenic and panorama painting in 1833 and began to record the local landscape. When his theater company moved to Philadelphia and Washington, DC in 1835, Smith went with them, settling in Philadelphia and later moving to nearby Jenkintown and Glenside, PA. He continued to work for the theatre, designing scenery and painting drop curtains for the Chestnut and Walnut Street Theaters and for the Academy of Music, while also gaining recognition for his landscapes and becoming Philadelphia's leading landscape painter. In 1850 he made a panorama based on William McIlvaine's (see entry) sketches of scenes in California and Mexico; it was shown in Philadelphia and Baltimore. In 1851-52 he visited Europe to paint a panorama of the Holy Land. He also designed scenery and sets for theaters in Baltimore, Washington, DC, and Boston. In addition, Smith worked as a scientific draftsman for geological surveys in Pennsylvania and Virginia. His wife, Mary Priscilla Wilson Smith, and both his children, Mary and Xanthus R. Smith, were also painters (see entries on each). Cf. Robert Smith, who exhibited transparancies in Pittsburgh in 1826.

Fuentes: G&W; DAB; Rutledge, PA, vo. 1 (as William Thompson Russell Smith); Clement and Hutton (as William Russell Smith); Falk, PA, vol. 2; Cowdrey, AA & AAU; Sweet, Hudson River School; obits., N.Y. Herald and Boston Transcript, Nov. 9, 1896. More recently, see Gerdts, Art Across America, vol. 1: 285; 300 Years of American Art, vol. 1: 154; Campbell, New Hampshire Scenery, 152-154; P & H Samuels, 452; Russell Smith and Xanthus Smith: Pennsylvania Landscapes, 1834-1892 (exh. cat., Vose Gal., Boston, 1979); Judith Hansen O'Toole and Carla S. Herling, Treasures from the Westmoreland Museum," American Art Review (February 1999), 138."