Another of the second generation of Scalp Level artists, Poole came to Pittsburgh via Baltimore in 1887. Before that, he had studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art in Philadelphia, and then at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Settling in his home state of Maryland upon his return, Poole found success as a portrait painter, most notably rendering a rare from-life image of General Robert E. Lee in the aftermath of the South's defeat in the Civil War.
It was only after his arrival in Pittsburgh, though, that he turned his attention to landscape, becoming particularly well known for his luminescent autumn scenes. In that regard, he is similar to the Hudson River School painter Jasper Cropsey, although his more painterly brushstroke is more reminiscent of George Inness.
This close association with autumnal paintings was noted in the American Art News 11:13 (January 4, 1913) when, in mentioning Poole's passing at the age of 71, it called him "a painter of American Autumn scenes." Even more poignantly, on Poole's burial marker it declares: "An artist of renown, who loved, studied and faithfully portrayed the beautiful in Nature."
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Scalp Level Autumn Landscape, 1911
Oil on canvas, 22" x 29 3/4"
Collection of the Southern Alleghenies Museum of Art, Loretto, PA
R. K. Mellon Family Foundation Art Acquisition Endowment Fund, 95.003
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