Smith, E. Boyd

The following biography was swiped from (http://www.bklynlibrary.org/hunt/smith.html): Elmer Boyd Smith (1860-1943) spent several years studying art in France before finally settling in Wilton, Connecticut. While living abroad, Smith absorbed a wide swath of influences ranging from the muted, mystery-laden palette and epic vision of French muralist Pierre Puvis de Chavannes to the dashing graphic shorthand of poster artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. He based My Village (1896), the first of the more than seventy books he illustrated for adults and children, on his summer sojourns in the village of Valombre, near Paris. Like so many artists of his generation, Smith, being acutely aware of living in a time of breathtaking technological and social change, dedicated himself in part to documenting aspects of the everyday world—sail power, the family farm—that he knew to be on the verge of disappearing forever.

The three illustrations in this gallery were published in Robert Gordon Anderson's "Seven O'Clock Stories", published by Putnam in 1923.