Hills Near Hendersonville

In 1927, Alice Smith went to visit friends in Quebec. Upon the request of her host, Smith took up sketching the Canadian outdoors. “You know, Joe (her canoe guide), I come from a country that is as flat as the floor of your house, and I am going to make some pictures of all your beautiful mountains and I will tell my people what Canada looks like.”—Alice Smith, Reminiscences, unpublished autobiography, after 1950.

Smith’s attachment to the Carolina Lowcountry is evidenced by the sheer number of extant watercolors both in public and private collections across the United States. Very occasionally Smith traveled away from Charleston to sketch locales beyond her familiar region, like Hendersonville, North Carolina. These sketches were later used to create watercolors in her Charleston studio.