Frog Smith, Everybody is Happy Happy While Mother Cooks Without Gas, Electricity or Even a Stove. Mixed Media, 14 by 18 inches.
Ernest “Frog” Smith’s colorful depictions of cracker Florida have always reminded me of Grandma Moses’ work in upstate New York. The recent prices for Frog Smith paintings vindicate that assessment. At the Slotin Folk Art auction in Buford, Georgia in April of this year, Smith’s Florida Folk Festival sold for $5,500 and Dowling Camp Mill at Slater, Fl. for $14,000. Its time to update my post on Frog’s work.
A. “Frog” Smith was a Florida artist, raconteur, folk historian and writer for the Fort Myers New Press. His column in the Press, Cracker Crumbs, also published by the Tampa Tribune, retold the history of old time Florida. Smith worked as a yard sweeper, blacksmith, machinist, oiler, steam locomotive operator, lumberman, harmonica player, alligator hunter, and frog-gigger. The last occupation earned him his nickname “Frog.” Smith said, “When I caught enough frogs in one night’s hunting in a hand-poled boat to dress out a barrel of frog legs, some envious friends nicknamed me Frog. I didn’t like it at first…but I couldn’t get rid of it, so when I stared writing, I used it as a pen name. Been Frog Smith ever since.” A self-taught artist, Smith was in his 80’s when he began painting, in a Grandma Moses style, from memory, the life and times of old Florida. He specialized in scenes of early Florida, including cotton mills, lumber yards and river boats. His paintings were displayed and sold at Thomas Edison’s Home in Fort Myers. He presented at the Smithsonian Institution’s Festival of American Folklife and the Florida Folk Festival. Smith was a recipient of a Florida Folk Heritage Award, honoring him for a lifelong devotion to Florida Folklife, and the author of two books, Crackers and Swamp Cabbage, Rich Tales about Poor Crackers, 1975, and The Tramp’s Heritage, 1985. Born: December 14, 1896, Crosland, Georgia. Died: August 3, 1993, Fort Myers. Exhibits: Pensacola Museum of Art, December 1994-February 1995; Frizell Gallery at Lee County Alliance of the Arts, December 1996.
Frog Smith, Fort Myers. Thomas A. Edison, oil on wood panel, 15 and one half by 26 inches.
Frog Smith, Fort Myers. Dowling Camp Lumber Mill, oil on wood panel, 16 by 32 inches.
Frog Smith, Fort Myers. Cotton Field, oil on board, 14 by 24 inches.
