J. Andre Smith

J. Andre Smith (1880–1959) was a war artist for the United States Army during World War I. He was born in Hong Kong, lived a few years in Hamburg, Germany as a child after his father died, and moved with his mother and family to New York City. He attended schools and college in New York State, getting an undergraduate and graduate degree in architecture.

Jules Andre Smith, was born to American parents in Hong Kong in 1880, when the city was under British colonial rule. His father was a shipbuilder who was lost at sea in 1887, after which his mother relocated the family first to Hamburg, Germany; then to New York City in 1889; and finally to the small town of Stony Creek, outside New Haven along the Connecticut coast, where they settled. It was here that Smith first showed an aptitude for art while in high school. However, in deference to his mother’s misgivings regarding a career as an artist, it was architecture that he studied when he entered Cornell University in 1898. He received a degree in architecture in 1902, and earned a master of science degree in the subject in 1904. He spent two years studying architecture in Europe on a Traveling Fellowship from Cornell. Upon his return from Europe, Smith worked for an architectural firm in New York City. He pursued etching and drawing in his spare time, soon attracting a critical and commercial following. He developed the ability to work quickly and preferred to finish a piece in one sitting. During his time in Europe, he had produced a considerable number of drawings and rendered studies, many of which were the basis of his subsequent printmaking work.

In 1917, upon America's entry into the war, Smith enlisted in the Army Reserve, where he was given officer training and became a first lieutenant in the Engineer Reserve Corps. He was soon promoted to captain and called to active duty as an artist assigned to The Camouflage Corps, 40th Engineers, under the command of Aymar Embury, the celebrated New York Architect, who organized a unit of eight professional artists to document the activities of the American Expeditionary Force in France, the same unit in which fellow architect-artist Louis Conrad Rosenberg served. Since he was the only one of the artists with any military training, Smith was designated the senior officer of the group. Over the next year he drew upon his architectural training to produce detailed pictures of buildings and places affected by the war, what he called "disquieting and somber images of the war." (He produced more pieces of art during the war than any of his fellow official artists). Additionally, he designed the Distinguished Service Cross.

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