Skip to main content
Eliza Smith was born on April 4, 1831. She was the youngest child of Alaston and Eliza Guild Smith who lived on Stewart Street in Providence, Rhode Island, and was the only one of their five children to survive infancy. Eliza Smith graduated from Rhode Island Normal School and went on to teach classes in various local Providence school districts from 1860 to 1889. She consistently won praise from local school committees for her teaching abilities. Never married, Eliza died at the age of seventy on July 16, 1901, and is buried in the Smith family plot at Grace Church Cemetery in Providence. Her personal possessions, including this portrait, were willed to friends, as she had no descendants to inherit her property.
Exhibition History“Uncommon Quilts: Treasures of the New York State Historical Association,” Aspen Art Museum, Aspen, CO, June 4, 1998 – July 19, 1998; Johnson Museum of Art, Ithaca, NY, August 29, 1997; Fenimore Art Museum, Cooperstown, NY, April 1, 1996 – December 31, 1996.
“Art of the Everyman: American Folk Art from the Fenimore Art Museum,” Florence Griswold Museum, Old Lyme, CT, May 28, 2014 – September 29, 2014.
ProvenanceMr. and Mrs. Howard Lipman, Wilton, Connecticut; Mr. Stephen C. Clark, Sr., Cooperstown, New York
BibliographyPaul S. D'Ambrosio and Charlotte M. Emans "Folk Art's Many Faces: Portraits in the New York State Historical Association," Cooperstown: NYSHA, 1987, pp. 190-192, illus. as no. 129.
Artist
Unidentified Artist
(American)
Related Person
Eliza Smith
(1831 - 1901)
Eliza Smith
Datec. 1836
MediumOil on canvas
DimensionsSight: 36 1/4 × 26 1/2 in. (92.1 × 67.3 cm)
Object numberN0034.1961
Credit LineCollection of the Fenimore Art Museum. Gift of Stephen C. Clark
Photograph by Richard Walker
Label TextRather than present the subject in a realistic interior setting, this artist created a personal, almost psychological vision. Eliza sits in a rocking chair, in an imaginary room that appears to float mysteriously over a murky landscape scene. The carpeted floor seems to be rendered in the shape of a large tray, with the front side visible as a strip of brown paint appearing along the lower margin of the canvas. This seemingly surrealistic interpretation creates an incongruous relationship between the interior setting and the landscape background. The structures depicted in the background of the portrait remain unidentified.Eliza Smith was born on April 4, 1831. She was the youngest child of Alaston and Eliza Guild Smith who lived on Stewart Street in Providence, Rhode Island, and was the only one of their five children to survive infancy. Eliza Smith graduated from Rhode Island Normal School and went on to teach classes in various local Providence school districts from 1860 to 1889. She consistently won praise from local school committees for her teaching abilities. Never married, Eliza died at the age of seventy on July 16, 1901, and is buried in the Smith family plot at Grace Church Cemetery in Providence. Her personal possessions, including this portrait, were willed to friends, as she had no descendants to inherit her property.
Exhibition History“Uncommon Quilts: Treasures of the New York State Historical Association,” Aspen Art Museum, Aspen, CO, June 4, 1998 – July 19, 1998; Johnson Museum of Art, Ithaca, NY, August 29, 1997; Fenimore Art Museum, Cooperstown, NY, April 1, 1996 – December 31, 1996.
“Art of the Everyman: American Folk Art from the Fenimore Art Museum,” Florence Griswold Museum, Old Lyme, CT, May 28, 2014 – September 29, 2014.
ProvenanceMr. and Mrs. Howard Lipman, Wilton, Connecticut; Mr. Stephen C. Clark, Sr., Cooperstown, New York
BibliographyPaul S. D'Ambrosio and Charlotte M. Emans "Folk Art's Many Faces: Portraits in the New York State Historical Association," Cooperstown: NYSHA, 1987, pp. 190-192, illus. as no. 129.
On View
Not on view
