Calvin Rae Smith (originally named Calvin Mortimer Smith) was an artist in New York City. His father was the well-known map maker John Calvin Smith. Calvin was trained at the Academy of Design in New York, and at the studio of Carolus-Duran in Paris (1874-1879). He also studied at l’Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris with Diogene Maillart and Adolphe Yvon. He was awarded first prize in the National Academy Life School in 1873. Calvin first exhibited at the Salon, Paris, in 1878, and had paintings at many major exhibits in his lifetime.
He was a professor of Drawing and Art at the College of the City of New York (CCNY) from 1880 to his retirement in 1917. He was one of the co-founders of the Brooklyn Art Club in 1879 and a member of the Salmagundi Club.
Calvin specialized in landscape paintings early in his career, but focused on portraiture and genre painting after his training in Paris.
He is also well known for having developed the first commercial single-lens reflex camera, the “Monocular Duplex”.
(Note that many sites incorrectly list his year of birth as 1850; it is actually 1847.)
(Most of his paintings are signed “C. Rae Smith” or “C.R. Smith”, but some early paintings are signed “Calvin M. Smith”)
Calvin Rae Smith 