Florence Smithburn (1904 – 1989)

Untitled (Farm), c. 1930s, oil on canvas, oil on canvas, signed with estate stamp lower right, 20 x 25 inches

$3250

Florence Smithburn is best known for Regionalist paintings of her native Indiana like Untitled (Farm). Writing in 1938 about her thirty-nine-painting solo exhibition at New York’s Argent Gallery, a commentator noted, “The artist is not a stylist. In all her work she has fitted style to subject, and the result shows strength, originality and purpose. Some of the most effective paintings are those which reflect the Indiana background with which the artist is so thoroughly familiar.”

Smithburn was born in Augusta, Indiana and studied at the John Herron Art Institute with William Forsyth and later in New York at the Art Students League and the Grand Central Art School with Harry Sternberg and Richard Lahey. Soon after her graduation from Herron, Smithburn began exhibiting and winning prizes at the Hoosier Salon and the Indiana State Fair. She was a member of the Indiana Art Association and taught art at Indianapolis’ Arsenal Technical High School, before moving with her physician husband to New York City where they lived for nearly a decade. During that time, she was a member of and exhibited with the National Association of Women Painters and Sculptors. Smithburn also exhibited at the Salons of America in 1934 and had solo exhibitions at New York’s Argent Gallery and the Herron Art Museum in 1938. Soon thereafter, the Smithburns moved to Uganda, where Florence focused her practice on depicting the local scene and customs. In 1942, the Art Students League Gallery hosted a solo exhibition of Smithburn’s African paintings. Smithburn’s production slowed after returning from Central Africa, but her art was revisited in 1994 when Cincinnati Art Galleries mounted a posthumous solo exhibition. Smithburn is listed in Who Was Who in American Art and other standard references.