Background
He born on January 16, 1833 in New York, United States, the eldest son of Katharine (Van Valkenbergh) and James Smillie and the brother of George Henry Smillie.
(The Yosemite is an unchanged, high-quality reprint of the...)
The Yosemite is an unchanged, high-quality reprint of the original edition of 1880. Hansebooks is editor of the literature on different topic areas such as research and science, travel and expeditions, cooking and nutrition, medicine, and other genres. As a publisher we focus on the preservation of historical literature. Many works of historical writers and scientists are available today as antiques only. Hansebooks newly publishes these books and contributes to the preservation of literature which has become rare and historical knowledge for the future.
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He born on January 16, 1833 in New York, United States, the eldest son of Katharine (Van Valkenbergh) and James Smillie and the brother of George Henry Smillie.
He was educated in private schools and the academic department of the University of the City of New York (later New York University).
Under his father's tutelage he began work in engraving very early, and became one of the most finished masters of the craft in America. He made his first plate when he was only eight years old, and until 1864, when he turned to painting, he collaborated with his father in much of his work, which included the making of banknote vignettes for the American Bank Note Company.
But Smillie was not satisfied to confine his efforts to the mechanical phases of engraving, and he soon turned from line engraving on steel to etching, dry point, aquatint, mezzotint, and lithography, achieving in all of them originality, freedom, and richness of effect. His first oil painting to be exhibited was a landscape sent to the National Academy of Design in 1864.
He was the treasurer of the American Society of Painters in Water Colors (later the American Water Color Society) 1866-71, and president, 1871-77. He was elected an Academician in 1876, and served both as a member of the council and as treasurer.
During the seventies and eighties he was foremost in the movement to promote painter-etching as an art. The catalogue of its first exhibition, 1882, contains an interesting account by Smillie of the making of the first little etched plate, now in the collection of the New York Public Library.
Throughout his life he continued to engage in the most diverse artistic activities. For his landscape subjects he traveled widely, paying special attention to mountain scenery in both the eastern and western United States.
He also made a series of line engravings for The National Gallery of American Landscape (copyright, 1869), illustrations of the Saguenay River and the Yosemite Valley for Appletons' Picturesque America (2 volumes, 1872 - 74), some small plates after artists of the day for the American Art Review, 1880, and a reproduction of "The Goldsmith's Daughter" of Daniel Huntington, 1884.
He died in New York.
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He was elected to the National Academy of Design in 1851.
On May 7, 1881, he married Anna Clinch Cook of New York, by whom he had two sons.