Edward Gregory Smith Young Boy, Drypoint, 1933 Marked # 1 Lower Left, Dated & signed in pencil Archival Mat Size: 16 x 20" (50.8 x 40.7cm) Plate Size: 9 1/4 x 6 3/4" (23.5 x 17 cm) Paper Size: 15 1/8 x 10 1/2" (38.3 x 26.7 cm) Full Margins, in very good condition. Smith was born on May 2, 1880, in Grand Rapids, Michigan, & died on November 7, 1961, in Boiling Springs, Pennsylvania. He was in Old Lyme, 1910-61. Gregory Smith (he always called himself that, though he signed some paintings with his full name) moved to Old Lyme from his hometown of Grand Rapids, Michigan, in 1910, at the encouragement of his friend Will Howe Foote. Smith, who was thirty at the time, had studied a couple of years at the Chicago Art Institute & was anxious to meet the many well-known artists staying in Old Lyme. Gregory Smith admired a number of the artists associated with the colony, particularly Childe Hassam. & Willard Metcalf. He respected Metcalf’s ability to record the essence of the New England countryside - from panoramic views to intimate woodland scenes. Metcalf’s interest in painting both moonlight scenes & winter landscapes influenced Smith to make these his specialty. Hassam’s imprint on Smith is illustrated in Smith’s painting of the Bow Bridge (cat. 206, illus. p. 148). Both painters utilized strong apostrophe-like brushwork & high-key colors to record a sense of veiled luminosity. When Smith & his wife Annie first came to Old Lyme, they rented the Brick Store, a local landmark that was near the present site of the Lyme Art Association. They frequently had meals at Miss Florence Griswold’s house & Gregory Smith sometimes boarded there with other colony members for several months at a time when Mrs. Smith took the children to Florida. Admired for his sharp wit, Smith was often in on the antics & practical jokes the artists played on one another. in 1916 the Smiths built a house & studio on Sill Lane in Old Lyme, where they lived for the rest of their lives. A beautiful arbor connected the studio to the house. Tragically, a fire in 1925 totally destroyed the studio & most of the work the artist had accumulated to that time. Although Smith was not so commercially successful as some of the Old Lyme group, the artists held him in high regard as a painter. Several of the most prestigious exhibition prizes of the Lyme Art Association were awarded him, including the W. S. Eaton Purchase Prize in 1922, the Woodhull Adams Memorial Prize in 1927, & the Goodman Prize in 1931 & 1936. in 1977 a small retrospective of Smith’s work was shown at the Lyme Historical Society. Smith served as president of the Lyme Art Association for more than twenty years, from 1934-58. Later he managed the association’s gallery & enjoyed a bit of local fame with his “Janitor” series of newspaper articles about the activities of the association. Smith also had an absorbing interest in politics & was involved for years in Republican activities in Old Lyme. He was a charter member of the
