Russell Smith

On the Pennypack, 1880

oil on canvas

29 ¼ x 37 ½ in.

James E. Roberts Fund

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Born in Glasgow, Scotland, Russell Smith, who was christened William Thompson Russell Smith, emigrated with his family to western Pennsylvania and then to Pittsburgh. Smith worked for his father a tool manufacturer then became involved in acting and scenery painting before becoming a caretaker of the Lambdin Museum.  While at the museum, Smith took painting lessons from the museum’s founder.  Smith’s scenery painting became so well known that he received commissions all over the East for his theater work.   He had always been interest in science and was hired by geologists to illustrate their lectures and record their expeditions.  In addition to his success with commercial activities, Smith painted portraits and landscapes and was an important member of the second generation of American landscape painters, who emulated but did not completely follow the Hudson River School tradition.  Smith spent his summers sketching outdoors then turned these sketches into finished paintings.  Later in life Smith devoted himself to painting the landscape around Philadelphia.  He was the father of Xanthus Russell Smith an accomplished painter.

On the Pennypack is a typical work for Smith.  In it he maintains the detailed realism of the Hudson River painters; however, he floods his picture with a clear light that creates an idyllic mood inconsistent with the Hudson River artists’ principles.  The woods are no longer the setting for reverential communion with God in nature as espoused by the earlier landscape painters.  Instead, they have become a delightful retreat from the cares of civilization which, by the 1880s threatened the remaining wilderness on the highly settled East Coast.  

Reference

Virginia Lewis. Russell Smith: Romantic Realist, Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1956. ASIN: B001OLGWD8