Artists

William Thomas Smedley

American, 1858-1920

William Thomas Smedley, a free lance artist, was commissioned by the wealthiest of New York Society for their portraits and was an illustrator of books and major magazines.

He received his formal training at Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia and then worked in New York City. Smedley began as a pen and ink artist for Harper and Brothers. He then went abroad to study with Jean Paul Laurens in Paris.

In 1882 Smedley was commissioned to travel the Canadian West and create a series of illustrations for "Picturesque Canada". He also sketched while on his travels around the United States and then later the world in 1890. He was a contributor to major magazines such as, Scribner's, Harper's, and The Ladies Home Journal. He worked in gouache, opaque watercolor for the later halftone engravings and oil for his portraits.

Smedley was very active as a member of the American Watercolor Society, the National Association of Portrait Painters, and the National Institute of Arts and Letters. He was often awarded for his work including the Evans Prize, A.W.C.S. 1890; and the Proctor Prize, National Academy of Design, 1906; and the Carnegie Prize, National Academy of Design, 1916. His work is also represented in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

His portraits are said to be "satisfying likenesses, skillfully and pleasingly done in academic style," and he is seen as a unique contributor as "the illustrator and historian of the fashionable life."

Source:
Falk, 1999
Walter Reed, 2001 "The Illustrator in America, 1860-2000"
Samuels, P. & H. 1976 "The Illustrated Biographical Encyclopedia of Artists of the American West"