Alice Ravenel Huger Smith (South Carolina, 1876-1958) tonalist watercolor Low Country landscape painting, titled “The Silent Watchers”, depicting two white cranes perched in branches amid a purple and blue-hued treeline. Below lies a sunlit, marshy body of water, clustered with lily pads. Signed “Alice R. H. Smith” lower right. Printed label with artist name, location, title and original price, en verso. Housed and matted under glass in a giltwood frame. Sight: 21 3/8″ H x 15″ W. Framed: 30 3/4″ H x 24″ W. Note: also included with this lot is a copy of the limited edition book, ALICE RAVENEL HUGER SMITH OF CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA: AN APPRECIATION ON THE OCCASION OF HER EIGHTIETH BIRTHDAY FROM HER FRIENDS, Privately published, ed. of 800, 1956, which lists this painting as #599, painted 1953 and originally sold to Dr. and Mrs. Sullivan of Nashville, Tennessee. Biography (adapted from the Johnson Collection, Spartanburg, SC): Charleston, South Carolina served as the birthplace, lifelong residence, and continuous source of inspiration for Alice Ravenel Huger Smith. Largely a self-taught artist, Smith was instrumental in the Charleston Renaissance along with friends Elizabeth O’Neill Verner, Alfred Hutty, and Anna Heyward Taylor. She served as a founding member of the Charleston Etchers Club and the Southern States Art League and was a part of the Historic Charleston Foundation, Carolina Art Association, and the Music and Poetry Society. Smith produced a body of work influenced by the lyricism of her associate Birge Harrison and other Tonalist landscape painters as well as the Japanese Ukiyo-e prints she studied and created. Smith’s work is included in the permanent collections of the Brooklyn Museum, the High Museum of Art, the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, and the de Young Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, among many others.

PROVENANCE: The Collection of William and Fletch Coke, Nashville, Tennessee.

CONDITION: Watercolor overall very good condition.