Smith family (Philadelphia, Pa.)

Russell Smith (1812-1896) was a native of Glasgow, Scotland whose family came to the United States in 1819 and settled near Pittsburgh. The Smith children were educated at home, and Russell showed an early interest in art. His first formal training in portraiture and landscape painting was in Pittsburgh under James Reid Lambdin. Around 1827, Smith began painting backdrops for theaters and within 6 years had achieved a national reputation for his theatrical painting. In 1835 he moved to Philadelphia to paint for the Walnut Street Theater, and soon received commissions to paint for theaters in Boston and Washington. Around this time, he also began writing poetry. Even while engaged in theatrical work, Smith continued to paint landscapes which were exhibited at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and the Artists' Fund Society of Philadelphia as early as 1834.

Russell Smith married Mary Priscilla Wilson, a flower painter and teacher of French and drawing, in 1838. By the 1840s, in addition to painting landscapes and theatrical backdrops, Smith was advertising his services as an "illustrator for lectures on various branches of natural science painted in distemper." He accompanied the scientific expeditions of geologists William Barton Rogers and Henry Darwin Rogers to Virginia and the Susquehanna and Juniata River valleys of Pennsylvania in 1844 and 1845 as an illustrator. During this period, Smith also traveled extensively in New Hampshire and upstate New York for summer painting expeditions. The Smiths traveled to Europe with their two children in 1851-1852, touring Wales, Scotland, Switzerland, Italy, the Netherlands, London, and Paris. Smith visited major museums and private collections, as well as architectural attractions, making sketches and keeping detailed notes of the trip.

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