Robert Harmer Smith (1907-1980) [RA 1951-1980]
American draftsman, etcher and architectural landscape watercolor and oil painter ;
R. Harmer Smith ; R.H. Smith ; R. H. Smith ; Robert H. Smith ;
[Born July 27, 1906 in Jersey City, NJ – died June 10 or 11, 1980 in Morris, NJ]

SAL record control number: 69148 ;

Record level: Person ;

Record type: Artist ;

Biography:

Birth: July 27, 1906 in Jersey City, NJ ;
Death: June 10 or 11, 1980 in Morris, NJ ;
Sex: Male ;
Ethnicity: White ; 
Zodiac: Leo ;

Known for: Architectural illustration ; architectural delineation ; building related art ; landscapes ; illustrations ; etchings ; watercolors ;
Medium: Pencil ; drafting ; watercolor ; oil ; soft-ground ; charcoal ;
Technique: Drawing ; painting ; etching ;
Subjects: Buildings ; homes ; New Jersey scenes ;

Areas: Jersey City, NJ ; Morristown, NJ ; New York, NY ; New Haven, CT ; Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada (1936) ;
Region: North East ;
Lived: 231 Wilkinson Avenue, Jersey City, NJ (1951) ; 44 Hamilton Street, Morristown, NJ (1980) ; 80 W 40th Street, New York, NY, studio (1951) ;
Father: Robert Brooks Smith (1858-1943), was a printer ;
Mother: Jennie Adeline (Bourne) Smith (1871-1955) ;
Relatives: Herket “Herbert” Lewis “Louis” Smith (1911-1989), brother, also a fellow Salmagundian ;
Spouse: [none] ;
Children: [none] ;

Training: Lincoln High School, Jersey City, NJ under Mary Ross Kelly (?-?) ; School of fine & applied art, Pratt Institute (1922-1925) under Arthur Leighton Guptill (1891-1956) ; School of fine arts, Yale University, New Haven, CT, Bachelor in fine art (1926-1928) under Otto Phaelton (?-?) and Professor Park (?-?) ; Art Students’ League of New York, New York, NY (1929) under Herbert Lewis Fink (1921-2006) ; Privately under Ernest William Watson (1884-1969) (1925-1930) ;
Instructors: Arthur Leighton Guptill (1891-1956) ; Ernest William Watson (1884-1969) (1925-1930) ; Otto Phaelton (?-?) ; Professor Park (?-?) ; Mary Ross Kelly (?-?) ; Herbert Lewis Fink (1921-2006) ;
Work: Worked as a draftsman for architect J Gordon Carr, New York, NY ; Pencil Points magazine (1931-1938) ; American Artist magazine ; Pencil Sketching, Pencil Points magazine (July, 1931) ; Worked with his brother for 18 years before retiring in 1965 ; Painted 15 paintings from an Drew forest preserve and Zuck Arboretum (1979) ;

Taught: [none] ;
Students: [none] ;

Member: Salmagundi Club, New York, NY, artist member (1951-1980), chair library committee (1962-1963), library committee (1957-1970), member 29 years ; Jersey City Museum Association, Jersey City, NJ, trustee ; University Club of Hudson County, Bayonne, NJ ; Hudson Artists, Inc. ; New Jersey Watercolor Society, Jersey City, NJ ;
Exhibited with: Jersey City Museum, Jersey City, NJ, exhibition with Robert Brooks Smith [his father] (1933) ; Jersey City Museum, Jersey City, NJ (1958, 1961) ; Salmagundi Club, New York, NY ; Friends of the Madison Public Library, Madison Public Library, Madison, NJ, Soft ground etchings by R. Harmer Smith (September-October, 1978) ; Western Counties Regional Library at Yarmouth Public Library and Museum, Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, exhibition of works by Robert Harmer Smith, 10 watercolors and drawings (June 18, 2000) ; Madison Library, works of Robert Harmer Smith (1986) ;
Awards: Jersey City Museum, Jersey City, NJ, watercolor prize (1958), Jersey journal medal for black and white (1961) ; Salmagundi Medal of Honor, Salmagundi Club, New York, NY (1978) ; Salmagundi Medal of Honor, Salmagundi, New York, NY (1978) ;

Milestones:

Notes: 

“Almost all my pictures start as small pencil sketches and many small watercolors are made, of which the best receive more sustained efforts on a larger scale. Each stage is represented in the exhibition. Sketching is-my game. My father, Robert Brooks Smith, early set me an example by having a sketchbook in his pocket; a stimulating high school art teacher, Mary Ross Kelley, gave my sketching artistic form by letting me have one of her vacation sketchbooks for a model and I was privileged to be taken into his sketch club by Ernest W. Watson, a distinguished exponent of the pencil. A broad exposure to art principles was basic to a study of architecture.

Professional practice with my brother, Herbert Lewis Smith, was in architectural delineation, a work requiring the imagination of realism to convey the effect of substance and clarify the purpose of proposed building designs.

Memberships are in the New Jersey Water Color Society, The Hudson Artists and the Salmagundi Club of N.Y. with which I exhibit regularly.”

-R. HARMER SMITH from the exhibition of his work in 1978

“R. Harmer Smith, a valued resident of Madison, not only has the happy faculty of recognizing natural beauty wherever it may exist, but also he has the rare ability to capture it for the benefit of present and future generations. He has found much of beauty to paint in and around Madison, and which most of us have never seen because we are always too intent on reaching some other place — and at not less than forty miles an hour.

In spite of growth and “Progress” there remain many beauty spots in our fine community to be admired and enjoyed by those who have the inclination, and take the time, to seek them. R. Harmer Smith’s paintings should point-up what we have missed, and provide the incentive to slow down a little and appreciate the best of Nature in Madison. Walk in the parks, and some bright fall afternoon explore Madison’s beauty spots on foot—you will feel better for doing so. Admire the magnificent three hundred year old “Tuttle Oak” which is a landmark on Prospect Street, for in its lifetime it has lived through far more adversity than any of us will.”

– THOMAS T. TABER from an exhibition on Robert Harmer Smith’s work in 1978

“My father was a Sunday painter. On Sunday morning, he sat at the kitchen table offered? site? to little Harmer, age four. Taking a brand new pencil, father divided the pencil exactly in half. Sharpened each half, handed one half to Harmer and some paper…and so it began, Harmer’s art career.”

Paul Brandson in a [Salmagundi] Club demonstration observed: “If an artist does not begin when he is 4, he hasn’t a hope.”

All of Robert Harmer’s old drawings, watercolors, sketchbooks and some paintings were donated by his brother to the Madison Public Library, Madison, NJ in 1986.

Image of Robert Harmer Smith above from Juley.