Helen Sheldon Jacobs Smillie

Helen "Nellie" Sheldon Jacobs Smillie was an American painter, known for genre painting and watercolors. She often used the signature N.S.J. Smillie, and the name Nellie 'Sheldon Jacobs Smillie'.

Biography

Helen Sheldon Jacobs was born on September 14, 1854, in New York City, New York to parents Helen Sheldon and Samuel J. Jacobs.
She studied painting at the Cooper Union, and the National Academy of Design. She also took private art lessons from James David Smillie, and Joseph Oriel Eaton.
She met painter George Henry Smillie through her teacher, his brother James. In June 1881, she married George at All Souls' Church in New York City. Together they had three sons. They shared an art studio on East 36th Street in Manhattan. She was a member of the American Watercolor Society.
A year prior to her death she was ill with a heart condition. Smillie died on July 31, 1926, in at Hotel Shelton in New York City.