Walter Granville Smith was born in Bellport, New York on January 26, 1870 and he died in Granville, New York in 1938. He was a painter and illustrator who studied with W. Satterlee, C. Beckwith and Willard Metcalf at the Arts Student League in New York City and in Paris at the Academie Julian. He was a member of the American Water Color Society, Salmagundi Club, Society of Painters (NY), Allied Artists of America, an Associate (1908) and an Academician (1915) of the National Academy of Design, NYC; the Greenwich Society of Artists; National Arts Club; American Guild of Artists; and the Grand Central Art Galleries, NYC. He won awards at the National Academy in 1900, 1908, 1927, 1929, 1933; a medal at the Charleston Exposition (1902); prizes at the American Water Color Society in 1905, 1916; Worcester Art Museum (1906); Art Institute, Chicago (1907); Buenos Aires Exposition (1910), Salmagundi Club (1911, 1913, 1918, 1922, 1925, 1928.
Smith's work is represented in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian Institution, Butler Art Institute, Toledo Museum (Ohio), Salmagundi Club (NYC), the National Academy of Design (NYC), Lotos Club, the Fencers Club, NYC, and the Philadelphia Art Club and elsewhere. He is renown for his charming genre scenes of young children and women involved in pleasurable activities along the shore, in parks and along city streets. During his lifetime, his realistic, well-painted figures and genres were illustrations for Harper's Magazine, Scribner's and other leading publications of the late 19th century.
Smith was well known throughout his career for painting in watercolor or oil beautiful women doing domestic chores or attending leisurely or sporting events. Not only was he an expert at painting anatomically correct human figures, he was an adept horseman and enjoyed riding, jumping and painting horses at race tracks in and around the Newport, RI area.
References:
Who Was Who in American Art (vol. 3); American Art Annual (through 1906); Fieldings', Mallett's Dictionaries of American Artists
