F. Carl Smith 

(1868-1955) 

Again I succumbed to subject matter. The image of a great Spanish salt bark being scraped down and repainted, with the brilliant orange underpaint, prior to its return voyage, was more than I could refuse. I obtained this painting from John Driscoll early on, when his gallery was in Boston. I probably didn’t know who the artist was, but the scene was clearly marked “Gloucester Harbor” and spelled incorrectly, which fit with the artist’s identified home as Pasadena, California. Quite interestingly, in many of the monographs that have appeared on Cape Ann, especially related to John Sloan and his five-year stay at “the little Red Cottage” from 1914 to 1918, photographs of the Sloans and their numerous friends and guests reveal the presence of F. Carl Smith. Clearly he visited Cape Ann from his California home, and was well accepted by the other artists such as Paul Cornoyer, Stuart Davis, and Charles and Alice Winter. Aside from a pleasing picture, this painting continues to remind me of the image appeal Cape Ann had among artists across the country. A minor footnote, while researching F. Carl Smith for this brief write-up, I discovered he was F. Hopkinson Smith’s son… interesting.