In The Tippler Smith combined the types of painting with which she was most identified-figure, landscape, and even still life-to create a pleasant genre scene of a working-class man enjoying a drink. During the late 1930s the artist painted several images of elderly people, endowing each figure with a sense of dignity and strength. Both The Tippler and Time Out, of about the same date (private collection), are half-length figures of robust workmen.
While always retaining an impressionist concern for color, Smith painted her mature figure paintings in a darker and richer palette. The silvery gray and purply browns of The Tippler and Time Out enhance the evocation of age and manual labor. Equally rich was Smith’s bravura handling: she built up the form of the man with long, strong strokes of a full brush in the tradition of earlier artists such as WILLIAM M. CHASE and her teacher Tarbell. The unfinished state of the wintry landscape hanging on the back wall to the left further demonstrates the vigor of her handling.
