The late Ed Szmyd at work at his easel. Photo courtesy Blowing Rock Frameworks and Gallery. Master of Light and Shadow High Country Artist Edward Szmyd (1933-2004) By Jeff Eason The High Country art world lost one of its brightest stars last Thursday when painter Edward Szmyd died on December 30th at the age of 71 at Blowing Rock Hospital. A deeply private man with a profound love of nature and art, his life was celebrated at a private service last weekend attended by family and friends. Szmyd, a Blowing Rock resident for the past quarter century, was a painter of rare talent whose work appealed to a wide variety of art lovers and his presence will definitely be missed in the High Country. Blowing Rock Frameworks and Gallery is one of only two galleries with original Ed Szmyd paintings on display, the other being an art gallery in Carmel, California. “The family has requested that we remove the paintings from the market, so they are no longer for sale,” said Tim Miller, owner and curator of Blowing Rock Frameworks and a friend of Szmyd for over a decade. “But people can come by and see the four paintings that we have of his here.” Szmyd’s unique style of painting has made him popular with both lovers of traditional realism and fans of more modern impressionistic paintings. After moving to the High Country in the 1980s, he pursued landscape painting and was one of the few naturalists who could capture the essence of Appalachian Mountain scenery. “I would call him a realist with an incredible sense of how light plays off of his subject,” said Miller. “He was an American master of light and shadow.” Szmyd’s life was one of near obsession with art, even from a very early age. “One of the interesting things about Ed was that he was untrained,” said Miller. “He lived and grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. As a young boy, instead of going out and playing baseball or cowboys and Indians with the other kids, he would to the art museums of Pittsburgh and study the works of art there.” After winning first prize in a community art exhibition at the age of nine, Szmyd decided that painting was in his blood. “He spent 40 years living in south Florida,” said Miller. “In the 1960s, he took a trip to eastern Tennessee and passed through Blowing Rock and fell in love with the place. Twenty years later he was on another trip, this time to Pennsylvania. He passed through Blowing Rock a second time and saw that it was virtually unchanged since his last visit. “He decided to spend the rest of his life in Blowing Rock and that’s what he did.” During his early years in Florida, Szmyd worked both as a commercial artist and as a fine arts painter. He is one of the few artists who seemed to have achieved a balance in those two fields and he never let the constraints of his commercial work influence his fine art ambitions. This past summer, Szmyd participated in one of the largest group shows of High Country artists ever organized. Exhibited at Blowing Rock Frameworks and Gallery, the group show was designed to raise awareness about the wide range of artistic personalities in the area and featured over 40 High Country artists. Each artist had one or two pieces in the show that were then auctioned off to help raise money for the Blowing Rock Art & History Museum’s building fund. The auction, held August 8th, 2004, featured 49 items that fetched about $125,000. That money was then divided among the artists and used to cover the expenses of the auction, with the remainder of the funds going towards the Blowing Rock Art & History Museum’s building fund. The new museum will be located on Chestnut Street at South Main in downtown Blowing Rock. “His painting brought the highest bid of any in the auction,” said Miller. “Someone bought it for $14,000, which I think was a steal, really.” Miller stated that he believes that an additional service might be held in remembrance of Edward Szmyd this spring when his ashes are to be scattered. In lieu of flowers or food, Szmyd’s family would like well-wishers to make contributions to one of Ed’s favorite charities, the Watauga Humane Society. Contributions can be mailed to: Watauga Humane Society, PO Box 1835, Boone, NC 28607.