Ella Smyth Peacock

Ella Gillmer Smyth Peacock is known for painting old buildings and landscapes in Sanpete County, Utah where she lived for nearly thirty years.  A regional impressionist who painted in a 1920s signature style in the late 20th century, Peacock lived in a small artists’ community in Spring City, Utah.

Peacock was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to George Albert Smyth and Adelaide Short Munhall Smyth.  She was educated at the private Germantown Friends School and High School through her sophomore year and later attended the public Germantown High School.

After enrolling in the Peabody Conservatory to study music, Peacock changed her mind and enrolled in the Maryland Institute College of Art for one semester.  Gillmer, as she called herself from 1924 to 1970, enrolled in the Philadelphia School of Design for Women-now called the Moore College of Art-on a scholarship.  Gillmer was awarded her degree in Illustration and received the Sam Murray Sculpture Prize from the Philadelphia School of Design for Women.  She was most influenced by instructors Sam Murray, George Harding, and Paula Balano.

Peacock supported herself throughout the Depression in a variety of design-related work, focusing on the decorative arts.  She made and burnished frames with gold leaf; she painted flowers on lampshades; drew designs for new settings for antique jewelry; she collected and sold antique furniture; she designed and built “themed” recreation rooms and remodeled and decorated apartments, the latter with her good friend Frances (Monty) Montgomery.  Peacock drove across the country to see the West at least three times on road trips with women friends and once with her mother, camping and painting the land of New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Utah and California. During these trips she established a love for the desert and the western landscape.

Peacock married William F. Peacock in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  Bill called her “Rollo.” Encouraged by the US government’s call for draftsmen, she completed a drafting course at Mastbaum Vocational High School in Philadelphia.

Peacock worked as a detailing draftsman in Philadelphia and Lansdale, Pennsylvania.  She also worked in Philadelphia, New York City; Scranton and Honesdale, Pennsylvania drafting wiring diagrams for the Voice of America, as a supervisor and chief draftsman.  For one year during this time (1954) she taught drafting through the International Correspondence School, as E. Peacock to conceal her gender.

The Peacocks moved to Spring City, Utah, where she finally retired and began painting the Sanpete County landscape in earnest.  After Bill died in 1979, she continued living in Spring City supporting herself with her landscape art for thirteen years.  In 1997 she moved back East to live with her son and his wife, as her health began to fail.