Harold von Schmidt and ‘Riding Away’ for Thursday Art day

For a couple of weeks I’ve missed Thursday Art day mainly because through November I took up the challenge of completing book 3 of the ‘Daughters of the Wind’ series. I’m still powering along, and have worked my way through a few hiccups but I’m relieved to say that at least November isn’t over yet!
Don’t you just love this painting? Today for Art day I thought it was time to share a favourite painting of mine titled ‘Riding Away’ by Harold von Schmidt. I adore this work, it makes me  desperately wish I was racing with these two determined young girls.  He captures an urgency with the flying dress the hat gone on the rider in the foreground. Her balance and confidence riding sidesaddle and her urging the horse to greater speed. The horse is in a full gallop his powerful hind legs pushing him faster and faster. I would love to know their story. Are they being chased? Or maybe on an urgent errand.

Harold von Schmidt and ‘Riding Away’

Harold von Schmidt
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia www.en.wikipedia.org

Harold von Schmidt (May 19, 1893 – June 3, 1982) was an American illustrator who specialized in magazine interior illustrations. Born in Alameda, California in 1893, he was orphaned at the age of five. After a year in an orphanage, he went to live with his grandfather, who had been a forty-niner. As a youth von Schmidt worked as a cowhand and a construction worker. In 1920 and 1924 he was on the United States Olympic Rugby team. Although the United States team won the gold medal both years, von Schmidt did not play in the only game in 1920, and was sidelined by an injury in the final practice in 1924.

Von Schmidt began his art studies at the California School of Arts and Crafts while he was still in high school. In 1924 he moved to New York City and entered the Grand Central School of Art. In 1927 he married and moved to Westport, Connecticut. Harold von Schmidt’s work appeared primarily in Collier’s Weekly, Cosmopolitan (magazine), Liberty (magazine), The Saturday Evening Post, and Sunset (magazine). Although he preferred magazine work and illustrated few books, he spent two years preparing sixty illustrations for a deluxe edition of Willa Cather’s Death Comes for the Archbishop. In 1948 he was recruited by Albert Dorne to be one of the founding faculty for the Famous Artists School. He was awarded the first gold medal by the trustees of the National Cowboy Hall of Fame in 1968.

Harold died on June 3, 1982 in Westport, Connecticut.