Helen Smith was an artist and leader in the artistic community of Frederick County for more than 80 years. With a prolific career and wide patronage throughout the area, Smith’s work has spurred on the imagination and creativity of countless artists that have come after her.
Smith grew up on a Frederick County farm, and as a child she would sketch scenes and items around her home. She began painting at the age of 12 after she won a watercolor set as a prize from a drawing competition sponsored by a farming magazine. Smith’s blossoming interest in art eventually led to her pursuit of a formal artistic education at the Maryland Institute of Art in Baltimore, MD. After graduating in 1916, she moved back to the Frederick area and began teaching at Hood College.
Although teaching was an accepted profession for women at the time, being an entrepreneur was not looked upon as favorably, and it can be challenging for anyone to make a living as an artist. Nevertheless, Smith opened an artist studio and shop on North Market Street in downtown Frederick, one of two that she operated until moving her practice to the Braddock Heights area. Having resisted the temptation to venture off to bigger cities to pursue her artistic career, Smith explained she was a small-town person and stated: ”I wasn’t skylarking. I was trying to make a living. My one thought was to make a living at art. Back then, that was quite an accomplishment.”
Smith rarely turned down requests from her customers and so has left behind a varied and eclectic body of work that ranges from traditional drawings and paintings of landscapes, animals, and portraits on paper or canvas, to paintings on clock faces, plates and dishware, and furniture, as well as silhouettes, family coats of arms, and much more.
In 1997, the artist passed away at age 103. Helen Smith’s legacy lives on through the objects she created but also through her love for the region’s artistic community. The Delaplaine is proud to offer free children’s workshops in her honor, inspiring and nurturing new generations of artists. The workshops are funded by generous donors and The Helen L. Smith Scholarship Fund for Children and the Arts at the Community Foundation of Frederick County.