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About Marshall D. Smith
Smith (dates unknown) was born in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin. He made a trip to Louisiana; like many others, he was attracted to the picturesque charm of old New Orleans. Smith exhibited such views as Royal Street, Evening, Old New Orleans, and Spanish Courtyard, Old New Orleans at the Art Institute of Chicago through the 1920s, while he was living at the Tree Studio Building on East Ohio Street. Around 1926-27 Smith made a trip to Spain and Morocco. He continued to exhibit at the Art Institute until 1943, specializing in local Chicago scenes; the titles of his paintings give specific place names (Between Division and Elm; Monroe and Clark, etc.). Smith took part in the Federal Art Project in Illinois, as an easel painter.
Boy with Red Pail is an impressionist genre picture of a carefully drawn, centrally placed boy at play on a sunny, summer afternoon. The concentric circles of the ripple help to focus our attention on the boy who leans over to empty his little red pail. There is a halo effect around the head, as the artist wanted to differentiate the figure from the landscape. Here we have one of the major differences between French and American impressionism. A French impressionist would have wanted to integrate figure and landscape, and would have diffused the figure’s contours. One might see the emptying of the pail as a symbol for the passing of time, sort of a variation of blowing bubbles. At any rate, this is a charming, down-home theme that evokes the carefree years of childhood. |
Paintings by Marshall D. Smith
| Boy with a Red Pail |
| oil on canvas: 24 x 20 inches |
| signed: lower left |
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