On the Ausable

James David Smillie

1869 · Watercolor and gouache on green-gray wove paper · The American Wing

Smillie was a member of a respected artistic family, including his brother, George Henry, and his father, James, whom James David followed into a career in engraving. For a time beginning in the 1860s Smillie earnestly devoted himself to landscape in both oil and watercolor. A close associate of Samuel Colman, the first president of the American Watercolor Society, Smillie accompanied Colman and other painters to the Adirondacks’ Keene Valley, through which the Ausable flows, for several seasons beginning in 1868. With lively touches of both transparent and opaque tints, Smillie captures well the effect of high, hot sunlight and the icy effervescence of the cascade.

Artist

James David Smillie

Date

1869

Medium

Watercolor and gouache on green-gray wove paper

Culture

American

Department

The American Wing

Credit line

Purchase, Mr. and Mrs. J. William Middendorf II Gift, 1967