Henry Pember Smith

Venetian Scene

1880's

Henry Pember Smith was entirely self-taught as a painter. He traveled extensively and painted numerous landscapes of Normandy, England Brittany and particularly of Venice. Smith developed a reputation for his work as a landscape artist and became commercially successful in his lifetime. The body of his work focused on escapism, paintings that idealized tranquility and the essence of the quiet countryside, following in the trend of his contemporaries to present work that would appeal to an ever urbanizing audience. His work is noteworthy for its’ handling of light and watery reflections, these treated with intricate brushwork that just touched on impressionism, creating a dream-like effect that engendered nostalgia. Visions of homely cottages, farms by the water’s edge, Venetian buildings on canals and small village centers are all painted in his very distinct stylizing. Smith maintained studios in New York City and exhibited extensively at the Brooklyn Arts Association, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and the National Academy of Design; he was also a member of the American Watercolor Society. His works are held in museums and institutions that include the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Art Museum, Cincinnati Art Museum, the North Carolina Museum of Art and the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco to list a few. Smith lived in the seaside town of Asbury Park, New Jersey until he died in 1907.