Fleischer Museum
American Collection of Impressionism
The California School

J. Christopher Smith was born in Ireland and emigrated to America with his family sometime around 1903. He studied in New York with Robert Henri, the leading figure in the Ash Can School and a proponent of painting the activities of everyday American life. In 1920, Smith came to Los Angeles. Many of his paintings show the plazas, streets and buildings of the city, with crowds of people milling about. In the mid 1920s, Smith made the aquaintance of Franz A. Bischoff and the two artists became close friends. Together they painted along the coast in Northern California, stopping in Monterey, Carmel and Cambria. Smith's painting of CAMBRIA shows his unique approach to color as a very bold and powerful statement. The houses are painted in a blaze of light giving the painting a feeling of very hot light and cool shade.

Cambria, California, 24" x 30" O/C

Mt. Majestic, Zion Canyon, 30"x40" O/C

In 1928, Bischoff and Smith travelled to Utah to paint the sandstone cliffs of Zion National Park. In MT. MAJESTIC, ZION CANYON, Smith presents the cliffs emerging from a powerful and dramatic light, with great intensity between the dark and light areas of the painting. After Bischoff's death in 1929, Smith retired from painting and turned his interests to interior design. He died of tuberculosis in 1943 at the age of fifty-two.