Adobe Gallery Blog
Painting of an Adobe House and Landscape by Samuel D. Smith - C3831B
Early 20th-century artists from the East and Midwest were drawn to New Mexico's charming settings of a brown adobe building set amongst cottonwood and aspen trees, under a blue sky with billowing white clouds, and a backdrop of a mountain. It was romantic, quiet, beautiful, restful, and begging to be captured on canvas.
That is just the scene Samuel D. Smith (1918-1999) captured in this small painting. The low brown mud building is snuggled in a restful landscape of brown dirt and green plants. Framing the painting is a flaming red tree and a brilliant yellow one. The blue sky is almost obliterated with dark rain clouds. The mountain in the background adds a solid anchor. The red pitch-roof barn building behind the flat-top adobe identifies the location as northern New Mexico where snow accumulation is abundant.