The Mill

ClassificationsPaintings-oils

Artist Walter Granville-Smith (American, 1870 - 1938)

Date1921

MediumOil on canvas

Dimensions30 × 40 in. (76.2 × 101.6 cm)
Framed: 39 1/2 × 49 1/2 in. (100.3 × 125.7 cm)

Credit LineMartha C. Stevens Memorial Art Collection

Object numberF7667

DescriptionThis oil painting landscapeis titled "The Mill" by W. Granville Smith. Painted in 1921. Walter Granville Smith was born in Granville, New York in 1870. His journey to working in New York City started at a relatively young age when his family moved to Newark, New Jersey. It was there that he attended the Newark Academy and trained under Dr. David McClure. Through the Art Students League of New York and other organizations he would go on to learn from Walter Satterlee, Willard Metcalf, and James Carroll Beckwith.The artist’s biggest claim to fame is that he was the first illustrator in the United States to have a machine-colored illustration in a magazine. The late 19th century saw several developments in printing which allowed for chromolithography to be practiced on a wide scale. The honor of the first periodical to include such an illustration goes to Godey's Magazine which in 1893 printed a color lithograph by Granville-Smith of Gertrude Asherton’s "The Christmas Witch"—presumably based on la Befana, an old woman of folklore who gives Italian children gifts of the eve of Epiphany. His works were published in many of the most important publications of the time, including Harper’s, Scribner’s, Century, Collier’s, and others.In the early 1900s Granville-Smith began entering competitions and steadily winning prestigious awards from the National Academy of Design, National Arts Club, and Salmagundi Club, which he headed from 1924-1926. He was elected an associate member of the National Academy of Design in 1915 after winning the Innes Gold Medal in an NAD Exhibition in 1908. His impressionistic style is regarded as having been influenced by a trip to Europe as a young man, and we can see that this painting is demonstrative of the Tonalist style which is attributed to his oils. Though also stylized in its depiction, Granville-Smith’s "The Mill" is impressive in its departure from the earlier work.

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