Smith, Lillian Wilhelm, 1882-1972

Lillian Wilhelm Smith (1882-1971) was born Lillian Wilhelm in New York City to Henry and Lenore Wilhelm. In her youth, she demonstrated an interest in art, thus her education was focused on honing her natural artistic skills. She received her art training at the Art Students League in New York, the National Academy, and the Leonia School of Art in New Jersey. She first visited Arizona in 1913 with author Zane Grey (1872-1939), a cousin by marriage, to illustrate his western-themed books. After a period of return visits – during which she became inspired by the people and landscapes of Arizona – she decided to move permanently to the state in 1916. She was briefly married to Westbrooke Robertson from 1916-1924; the two were separated for the final two years.

In 1923, Lillian met Jesse (Jess) Raymond Smith (1886-1960), a ‘good-natured cowboy’ and U.S. Army veteran of World War I; they married shortly after her divorce to Robertson was finalized in 1924. Although the couple never had children, they had a wide variety of friends, including famous playwright Porter Emerson Browne (1879-1934). During her career, Lillian was acknowledged as one of the first white women to venture into the more inaccessible regions of Northern Arizona, and much of her work was inspired by Arizona’s natural geological formations and expansive desert vistas, as well as Hopi and Navajo people and their ceremonies. Mrs. Smith designed china with Indigenous motifs; some of her patterns were in Goldwater’s in Phoenix. She later operated guest ranches in Tuba City and Sedona, and operated an art shop in the Baltimore Hotel in Phoenix for three years. Her paintings were exhibited in the Arizona Museum in Phoenix, and elsewhere across North America.

After Jess’s death, Lillian isolated herself in southern Arizona, where she remained until her passing in February 1971. By her side for her final years was close friend Kay Manley. Her eulogy highlighted her significance to the artistic community to which she was so closely tied:

"Her brush captured vividly in oil and water color the characteristics of this great land – mountains, canyons and desert. In our opinion she was a fine artist but many of the years through which she lived were difficult years economically for the American people and this fact, coupled with the fact that Arizona was still within the first early years of its founding, never brought to this fine artist the recognition locally to which she was truly entitled."

From the guide to the Lillian Wilhelm Smith collection, circa 1900-1974, predominant 1914-1968, (The Museum of Northern Arizona)