About Russell Smith

Name variants

William Thompson Russell Smith
  • Biography

    A painter of grand-scale landscapes in the mid 19th century, Russell Smith was born in Glasgow, Scotland, and emigrated with his parents in 1819 to western Pennsylvania where he grew up in Pittsburgh. His birth name was William Thompson Russell Smith. He was self-taught as an artist, and became a highly successful scenic designer, scientific illustrator, as well as panoramic landscape painter. He excelled at dramatic vistas with atmospheric effects intending to show the grandeur of nature, but he also painted small intimate landscapes, which some persons have thought he preferred.

    He began earning money as a painter of commercial signs. For fun, he did life-size portraits of famous heroes and then studied with...

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