Marshall J. Smith Jr. (1854-1923)
c. 1880
Oil on canvas
| Pine in Bayou Marshall J. Smith Jr. (1854-1923) c. 1880 Oil on canvas |
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| Following the Louisiana
landscape tradition established by Richard Clague Jr.,
Marshall J. Smith Jr. painted images of wetlands and
bayous. Born in Virginia, Smith grew up in New Orleans,
where he took art lessons from Adolphe Jacquet and
Richard Clague. Upon Clague’s untimely death, Smith
studied with Theodore S. Moise and at the Academia dei
Medici in Rome and Royal Bavarian Academy of Fine
Arts in Munich. By 1878 Smith returned to New Orleans and worked as a clerk in his father’s insurance company. He continued to pursue his career as an artist and with fellow artists William Buck, Andres Molinary, and Edward Livingston organized the Southern Art Union in 1880. A founding member of the carnival organization Proteus, he designed many of the krewe’s Mardi Gras tableaux and parade floats. The quiet image of fishermen amid the Louisiana wetlands in Solitary Pine Tree by the Bayou was a favorite theme of Smith and illustrates Clague’s influence. In fact, the piece was for some time misidentified as Clague’s work in William E. Groves book Louisiana Painters and Paintings. Groves based this assertion on a similar drawing entitled Pine Tree, Spring Hill signed by Claque in the collection of the New Orleans Museum of Art. In the 1974 retrospective exhibition catalogue Richard Claque 1821-1873, Smith’s initialed signature on the painting was revealed after careful examination and the artist correctly identified. By the
same artist: |