|
About Walter Granville-Smith
Walter Granville-Smith (1870-1938) began as an illustrator, having studied in the Art Students League, under Beckwith and Metcalf. His illustrations appeared in Harper’s, Scribner’s and Collier’s. He developed a style that could be called a high-key tonalism, approaching the lyricism of Twachtman. His landscapes, a large part of which appear to be autumn scenes, feature a great pictorial vastness and an particularly American sense of space. Granville-Smith sought to capture an openness, perhaps a kind of lingering view of the nation’s vastness. He combined a sound illustrative discipline with an intuitive approach to nature. Granville-Smith won numerous prizes and exhibited widely: at the National Academy of Design, the American Watercolor Society, the Pennsylvania Academy, and at the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh.
A small but brilliantly conceived image, Spring’s Eve was probably a spontaneously executed scene that became magically worthwhile as a finished painting. Whether a larger canvas was worked up from this panel is unknown, but the scene is extremely successful in terms of composition, light and color. The exact location depicted by the artist is also unknown. |
Paintings by Walter Granville-Smith
| Spring's Eve |
| oil on panel: 7 1/2 x 11 inches |
| signed and dated 1909: lower left |
|
| |
Click Picture to Enlarge
|
|
)