Collect: American Art

Note

Born in Scotland, William Thompson Russell Smith moved to Pittsburg alongside his family in 1819. He established his career painting theatrical scenes and commercial signs, a skill that brought him to Philadelphia in 1835 when he was hired to paint set designs for the Walnut Street Theater. He earned additional income through commissioned portraiture and romantic landscapes inspired by his contemporaries of the Hudson River School. Around this time, Smith started travelling throughout the eastern United States, painting and drawing landscapes he found from Virginia to New England. Later in his life, Smith focused heavily on documenting the landscape in and around Philadelphia, as seen in Sketching Along the Wissahickon, completed in 1874. The unidentified figure in the foreground may be Smith’s wife, Mary Priscilla Wilson, or perhaps their daughter, Mary Russell Smith, both of whom were also artists known to capture the intimate beauty of the Pennsylvania landscape.