Background
He was born on December 29, 1840 in New York, United States, son of Katharine (Van Valkenbergh) and James Smillie, and younger brother of James David Smillie.
He was born on December 29, 1840 in New York, United States, son of Katharine (Van Valkenbergh) and James Smillie, and younger brother of James David Smillie.
He was educated in private schools, received his first lessons in art from his father, and later became the pupil of James MacDougal Hart, who, like himself, was a landscapist of Scotch descent.
He spent his professional life in New York, where he had his studio, but sought his subjects from New England to Florida and west to the coast.
In 1884, with his wife, he made an extended tour of Europe. He was recording secretary of the National Academy from 1892 to 1902, and treasurer of the American Water Color Society for four years. With James D. Smillie, he and his wife shared a studio in East Thirty-sixth street; their home was in Bronxville, New York.
The merits of his pictures were recognized by amateurs of discernment. The famous specimens of his collection: "Low Tide", "From Grindstone Neck" and "Landscape, Easthampton, L. I. ", "Long Island Farm" and "Gray Autumn. "
"A Long Island Farm" and "Autumn on the Massachusetts Coast" were acquired by the Corcoran Gallery, Washington; other examples are to be seen in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Rhode Island School of Design, Providence; the Lotos Club, New York; and the Union League Club of Philadelphia, which owns his "Light and Shadow along Shore. "
Among his important works is the "Lake in the Woods, " first shown at the National Academy in 1872 together with several water colors.
He died of heart disease at his home in Bronxville in his eighty-first year.
In 1882 he was made a member of the National Academy of Design.
Quotes from others about the person
The summing-up of his qualities as a landscape painter in the catalogue of the Clarke collection is fair: "His pictures combine artistic skill and poetic feeling in a high degree and are marked by agreeable cheerfulness of color . "
On June 28, 1881, he married Nellie Sheldon Jacobs, a painter of genre pictures, who had been a pupil of James D. Smillie and was a member of the American Water Color Society. They had three sons.