Impressive original artwork by Dan V. Smith of a United States Army parachutist in full uniform as he boards a military plane, expertly accomplished in graphite, ink, and watercolor on 10.25 x 17 drawing board, which is signed in the lower left in white paint, “Dan V. Smith.” Matted to a slightly larger size and in very good to fine condition, with toning end edge wear to the mat, not at all affecting the artwork itself.
Born in Ivigtut, Greenland in 1865, Dan Smith began studies at the Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts, and, in 1890, he became an illustrator for Frank Leslie's Illustrated Weekly; one of his first assignments was to depict the massacre at Wounded Knee, South Dakota. Smith worked for William Randolph Hearst as an illustrator of the Spanish-American War. For the next twenty years, he created cover art for The World and continued his work as a book illustrator.
