Southwest Arkansas Arts Council Has Program On Effie Anderson Smith

Smith was born in Nashville in 1869 in the challenging times after the Civil War. Her family moved to Hope when the railroad came. Both her parents were well educated.

The earliest painting of Smith’s is from the age of 15. She went to King’s school where there were 8 children and afterwards the Hope Female Institute for two years.

Her first husband only lived for three months after the wedding making her a widow. After this she travelled to visit her deceased husband’s family in Tennessee and travelled with them.

Smith travelled to Washington City and even as far as New York where Impressionism was being embraced. Impressionism when it first was exhibited was rejected as not being finished art.

Impressionism captured momentary shifts of light with rapid painting and sometimes many images being produced.

Smith studied with many painters who were either from Europe or who had studied in Paris.

In 1894 Smith and her sister had resigned their positions in Nashville and Hope and gotten teaching positions in Deming, NM. It was there that Smith would meet her second husband, A.Y. Smith with whom she would travel to Pearce, AR.

Her husband was a bookkeeper for the mine and later became president of the mine. They were leaders in the area’s social life and politics. Of the Smith’s three children, only their middle child, Lewis survived to adulthood.

The death of her daughter Annabelle caused Smith to seek solace in her art. Her husband’s business trips to California allowed her to immerse herself in art, where she studied with leading impressionists.

After studying with Anna Althea Hills and Jean Mannheim Smith displayed in galleries across the Southwest as well as meetings and conferences, fairs and churches and civic clubs. She received an invitation to present solo exhibits in Washington, Philadelphia and New York.

After her husband died she stayed on alone in their rebuilt home through the Great Depression. After 45 years in Pearce, she relocated to the Hotel Gadsden in Douglas, south of Pearce on the Mexican border. There she operated an art studio, founded an art league, taught classes, exhibited and lectured.

As her health and income declined Smith availed herself of a benefit offered to early settlers, becoming a resident of the Arizona Pioneers’ Home in Prescott. Failing eyesight now curtailed her painting.

In her most productive years Smith created hundreds of desert paintings showing Arizona’s raw natural beauty.

Smith said she felt a sense of ownership of the yucca that she painted and even the landscape as a result of painting.

After focusing on the skeleton of the landscape Smith decided to focus on the plant life as well as the plants drew a lot of interest.