Elmer Boyd-Smith (1860-1943)
E. Boyd-Smith, as he was mostly signed, was American painter, who was strongly influenced by impressionism, but is today more known as an illustrator and althogh never achieved the fame and financial success of some of his contemporaries is today compared with Jessie Wilcox-Smith and Howard Pyle.
- he studied for about three years in France, at Colarossi, Julian and Ecole de Beaux-Arts, where he didn't only learn from master, as Gustave Boulanger and Jules Joseph-Lefebvre, but lived true life of a bohem, visiting everything related to art (apart from Paris, he spent some time in Brittany and visited London and Brussels and Antwerp as well), while barely managed to pay the rent, he learned fluent French (he also spoke German language), and meat many interesting people from world of art
- at return to US, he couldn't survive as an artist, despite the fact he had several exhibitions and shortly held a position of director of Kansas City Art Association School, so for some time he lived from making portraits of deceased people, going door to door with a so called death lists; in his diary he concluded he tried everything, bu can show only about twelve hundred dollars of debt and seven cents in his pocket
- E. Boyd-Smith returned to Paris in 1891, married Mary McDowel in 1896, when his first book illustrations were published; by the end of his life he illustrated about 60 books for adults and 20 for children
E. Boyd-Smith, as he was mostly signed, was American painter, who was strongly influenced by impressionism, but is today more known as an illustrator and althogh never achieved the fame and financial success of some of his contemporaries is today compared with Jessie Wilcox-Smith and Howard Pyle.
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| Elmer Boyd-Smith: scene from The Seashore Book |
- he studied for about three years in France, at Colarossi, Julian and Ecole de Beaux-Arts, where he didn't only learn from master, as Gustave Boulanger and Jules Joseph-Lefebvre, but lived true life of a bohem, visiting everything related to art (apart from Paris, he spent some time in Brittany and visited London and Brussels and Antwerp as well), while barely managed to pay the rent, he learned fluent French (he also spoke German language), and meat many interesting people from world of art
- at return to US, he couldn't survive as an artist, despite the fact he had several exhibitions and shortly held a position of director of Kansas City Art Association School, so for some time he lived from making portraits of deceased people, going door to door with a so called death lists; in his diary he concluded he tried everything, bu can show only about twelve hundred dollars of debt and seven cents in his pocket
- E. Boyd-Smith returned to Paris in 1891, married Mary McDowel in 1896, when his first book illustrations were published; by the end of his life he illustrated about 60 books for adults and 20 for children
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