Impressionist Flowers in a Bowl

Marcella Smith’s family emigrated to America when she was a young girl, where she first studied at the Corcoran School of Art in Washington, and then at Philadelphia School of Design, and returned to Europe to attend Colarossi’s Atelier in Paris, taught by Eugene Delecluse. Smith concentrated on flower paintings in oil, and increased the size of her canvases during the 1930s. Smith and the artist Dorothea Sharp were travelling companions, and Smith appears in paintings of the South of France by Sharp, one from 1914 called Marcella Smith at the Beach. Smith and Sharp also lived in St Ives together during the WWII, both later became prominent members of the St Ives Society of Artists.