James David Smillie, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death

James David Smillie

American painter and illustrator

Date of Birth: 16-Jan-1833

Place of Birth: New York City, New York, United States

Date of Death: 14-Sep-1909

Profession: engraver, artist, painter, graphic artist, art collector, printmaker, drawer, watercolourist

Nationality: United States

Zodiac Sign: Capricorn

James David Smillie (January 16, 1833 – September 14, 1909), American artist, was born in New York City. His father, James Smillie (1807–1885), a Scottish engraver, emigrated to New York in 1829, was elected to the National Academy of Design in 1851, did much, with his brother William Cumming (1813–1908), to develop the engraving of bank-notes, and was an excellent landscape-engraver. The son studied with him and in the National Academy of Design; engraved on steel vignettes for bank-notes and some illustrations, notably F.
O.
C.
Darley's pictures for James Fenimore Cooper's novels; was elected an associate of the National Academy in 1865—the year after he first began painting—and an academician in 1876; and was a founder (1866) of the American Water Color Society, of which he was treasurer in 1866–73 and president in 1873–78, and of the New York Etching Club. Among his paintings, in oils, are Evening among the Sierras (1876) and The Cliffs of Normandy (1885), and in water colour, A Scrub Race (1876) and The Passing Herd (1888).
He wrote and illustrated the article on the Yosemite in Picturesque America.
A portrait of Smillie by Henry Augustus Loop is in the collection of the National Academy of Design, as is another by James Hamilton Shegogue.His brother, George Henry Smillie, was also a painter.