The E. A. Smith Archive contains a collection of more than 500 notices from newspapers and magazines, including reviews of Effie's (Mrs. A. Y. Smith) art shows, critiques of her art exhibits and quotes of the artist from various interviews and speaking engagements.
The art related items, many from the artist's personal papers, mostly date from her exhibits and art activities from the mid-1920's through Effie's 80th birthday in 1949, as she visited communities small and large across Arizona and exhibited in major eastern cities.
We also have period documents on the artist’s family in Arkansas, from the time of her parent’s antebellum wedding in 1861, on through Reconstruction and the family’s relocation to the New Mexico Territory in the 1890s - along with citations from the period of Effie’s second wedding to Andrew Young (A.Y.) Smith and their new life together as pioneer settlers in the mining camps of the Arizona Territory from 1895.
The documentation of hundreds of Effie’s known paintings continues for the forthcoming catalogue raisonné, covering a creative life of more than 65 years - from her earliest known youthful Arkansas landscape dating from 1884 to her latest known Arizona canvas from 1952, completed while Effie resided in her final years at the Arizona Pioneers’ Home in Prescott.
Study copies of our Archive’s print resources are available for your educational and research purposes. For more information, please contact us.
Reference Works which include a Biographical Sketch of E. A. Smith:
An Encyclopedia of Women Artists of the American West
by P. & M. Y. Kovinick (1998)
University of Texas Press, Austin
Artists in California, 1786-1940
by E. M. Hughes (2002)
Crocker Museum of Art, Sacramento
NOTE: E. A. Smith’s correct birthdate & place of birth are September 29, 1869 in Nashville, Arkansas - NOT 1868 and NOT Hope, Arkansas as many citations have stated erroneously. Incorrect Arizona state records at the time of the artist’s death have been replicated many places in print and online. Our extensive research has confirmed 1869 and Nashville are unquestionably correct.
Profiles of E.A. Smith can be found in these Periodicals:
Mrs. A. Y. Smith, Arizona Artist
by Marian Compton
Progressive Arizona and the Great Southwest
VOL. 9, No. 5 - November 1929
Arizona's Forgotten Artist, Mrs. A. Y. Smith
by O. Carroll Arnold
Pioneer Painter
by Myriam Toles
Cochise County Historical Journal
VOL. 19, No. 3 - Fall 1989