Collections
| Back New Search Tips |
W. Thomas Smith
| Last Name: | Smith |
|---|---|
| First Name: | W. Thomas |
| Dates: |
1865 (Date of Birth)
1936 (Date of Death)
|
| Biography/History: | W. (William) Thomas Smith was a British artist about whom surprisingly little is known despite the fact that his portrait of Sir Henry Mortimer Durand (1903-04) hangs in Britain’s National Portrait Gallery and what is considered his best-known painting, “They Forged the Last Links with Their Lives”: Sir John Franklin’s Men Dying by Their Boat during the North-west Passage Expedition (1895), hangs in the National Maritime Museum. The National Portrait Gallery gives his dates as 1865-1936. Further, there is confusion with an apparently different artist called William 'St Thomas' Smith, who was a landscape and marine painter born in Belfast, with early and late-life Canadian connections, but who also worked in Britain, and whose dates were 1862-1947. In 1902, "W. Thomas Smith, artist," appeared in the London City Directory at the Wentworth Studios. By 1903, he was living and working in Spokane, although how he came to move to Spokane is unknown. Over the years, the Spokesman-Review mentioned Smith in numerous articles. He served as a judge for a number of local art exhibitions as well as serving as honorary president of the Spokane Society of Washington Artists. Smith was described as one of the best artists in the northwest, but also well-known and highly rated in London, England and other foreign places. He painted a number of portraits of prominent Spokanites including Mr. and Mrs. James Clark, Dan Clark, Mary Clark, Will Cowles, Harriet Cowles, Miss Richardson, Eleanor, Cherry, and Beatrice Eltinge, Charles and Reney Eltinge, Mrs. John A. Finch, Mrs. Jerome Drumheller, Joseph Scott, Mrs. Graves, Judge L. H. Prather, Mr. and Mrs. S. S. Glidden, K. K. Cutter, Miss Caroline Turner, Senator and Mrs. George Turner, Robert and Edward Coman, and A. B., Grace and Helen Campbell. Smith spent the first half of 1906 on the east coast. While there, he represented the London Daily Graphic as its artist at the wedding of President Theodore Roosevelt’s daughter Alice to Nicholas Roosevelt. In January 1910, the Spokesman-Review reported that Smith was planning to leave for Europe to study portrait painting. He was expected to be gone for more than a year, but planned to come back to Spokane and to his position of president of the art society. The absence of any further news articles mentioning him suggests he did not return. Smith appears in the 1911 England census in which he’s listed as 46 and single and living at the Chelsea Art Club at 123 Cheyne Walk, Chelsea. This confirms his birth year as 1865 and notes his birth place as the Marylebone area of London. He appears again in 1915 at the same address, but thereafter the records go silent. The National Portrait Gallery lists Smith’s death date as 1936. Sources: Ancestry.com, including England Census records, London City Directory, Spokane City Directory; Spokesman-Review / Newspapers.com; Royal Museums website (https://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/12764.html) and Art UK (https://www.artuk.org/discover/artists/smith-w-thomas-18651936) |
| Related Objects: |
2485.1 (Painting; Portrait, Portrait of Amasa Campbell, 1904)
2485.2 (Painting; Portrait, Portrait of Grace Campbell, 1904)
2485.3 (Painting; Portrait, Portrait of Helen Campbell, 1904)
3288.1 (Painting, Portrait of Frank Culbertson, 1903)
|