GEORGE HENRY SMILLIE
Mill Pond at Ridgefield, Connecticut.
Oil on canvas, circa 1892. 506x760 mm; 20x30 inches. Signed in oil, lower left recto.
Provenance: Sold Doyle Auctions, New York, December 5, 1990, lot 12; private collection, New York.
Prior to the 1990 sale, Brucia Witthoft, PhD., a scholar on the artist James Smillie and the Smillie family, reviewed the present painting and included it in the inventory of George H. Smillie's work. Dr. Witthoft's research materials, including the unpublished inventory, are held in the Archives of American Art.
George Henry Smillie (1840-1921), born in New York, came from a family of artists, including his father James Smillie, a steel engraver, and older brother James D. Smillie. After studying with his father and landscape artist James MacDougal Hart, George H. Smillie opened a studio in New York, where he would work for much of his life. He was active in artists organizations, including the National Academy of Design and the American Water Color Society, serving as an officer in both. Despite living in the city, Smillie spent summers traveling and sketching landscapes in the northeastern United States. In 1881, Smillie married artist Nellie Sheldon Jacobs, and traveled with her to Europe in 1885. Though heavily influenced by the Barbizon painters, Smillie's style became more impressionistic in his later career. He moved to Bronxville, New York in 1906, where he was inspired by the landscape and would spend the rest of his life.
Estimate: $ 4,000 - $ 6,000
