Houghton Smith

An inveterate traveler in this country and abroad, early in his career Houghton Cranford Smith was a great admirer of the French Impressionist Claude Monet whom he called "the greatest painter of all times." He felt that "he saw nature as I did." Smith's early impressionistic landscapes reveal this admiration. However, by the 1930s he transitioned to a more severe, quasi-geometric, flattened style after studying in Paris.

Smith was raised comfortably in Arlington, New Jersey. In 1903 he graduated from the Froebel Academy, in Brooklyn, New York. Afterward he took classes at the Pratt Institute, also in Brooklyn, and at the Nantucket School of Design in Massachusetts. In 1907 he enrolled at the Art Students League where his instructors were George Bridgman, William Merritt Chase, and Kenneth Hayes Miller. He spent the summers of 1909 and 1910 in Provincetown, Massachusetts, as a student of Charles Hawthorne and E. Ambrose Webster, both of whom conducted schools that emphasized painting en plein air. Smith became a monitor for Hawthorne and in his memoir recounted his responsibilities: "I had to find models for outdoor classes and for the portrait class. Out of doors we usually had girls in light colored dresses with big hats or parasols. I would pose the model on a sandy beach or on the end of a wharf then tell Hawthorne where he could find us when he came to give us an outdoor criticism." In 1914 he participated in the establishment of the Provincetown Art Association and Museum, in a location he held dear. Following his death his family donated a hundred works to the association.

In 1912 Smith began the first of his explorations, traveling to Bermuda, Cuba, and Jamaica. In Paris in 1913/1914 he was enrolled at the Académie Julian where he studied with Jean-Paul Laurens, an academic painter with a romantic bent, and traveled around France. Claiming "I wanted to stay longer in Provincetown," he returned to the United States in 1915/16 before embarking on a trip to South America in pursuit of scenery. His plans were extended as a result of Germany's blockade during World War I and consequently he stayed almost five years in Chile until the conclusion of the war. He held a teaching position at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, from 1920 to 1925, after which he returned to Paris, 1925 to 1933, with occasional trips back to New York. As a result of studies with Amédée Ozenfant at the Académie Julian and at the Académie de Montparnasse with André Lhote (shortly after Josephine Sibley Couper and Blanche Lazzell had been students), Smith's style shifted away from Impressionism toward a more streamlined and at times geometric approach. Typically, the later landscapes had low horizons and skies filled with abundant clouds.

In addition to time in Paris, during this period Smith enjoyed a special living situation in New York to which he returned regularly; his father had given a portion of his property on Twelfth Street to the New School for Social Research, with the stipulation that permanent living quarters be available for his family. Smith was in residence there from 1934 to 1946 and also had a studio on the premises. In 1941 he made his final trip abroad to Guatemala with his second wife Laura, a native of Lancaster, South Carolina. They both enjoyed the coast and frequented Pawley's Island in South Carolina and the shore in New Jersey. "I think October is the most beautiful month of all," he wrote. "The skies are very exciting with fast flying clouds in the Indian summer. The poison ivy on the dunes turns to rich burgundy colors and the harbor water with thousands of gulls is most exciting. I have lived on Long Beach Island, New Jersey, where I feed gulls every afternoon. But they never seem to have the cry that the gulls of Provincetown had." Late in his career he continued to paint, but did not feel a need to promote himself or have exhibitions.