George Smillie was born into an artistically inclined family; both his father and his brother were engravers with the latter, James David Smillie, becoming an accomplished painter as well. Both were also members of the National Academy.
George received his early art education from his father and, in 1861, became a pupil of landscapist James MacDougal Hart. He kept a studio in New York for much of his life but spent many summers in the White Mountains of New Hampshire and, in 1871, traveled to the Rocky Mountains and the Yosemite Valley. Three years later he was seeking subject matter in Florida and in 1885 made a trip to Europe. He married one of his brother's former pupils, Nellie Sheldon Jacobs, who specialized in the painting of genre scenes and who was an accomplished watercolorist. Both she and her husband were early members of the American Water Color Society and George served as treasurer of that organization for four years.
Smillie began exhibiting at the Academy in 1862 and continued to do so in almost every year until his death. From 1892 to 1902, he held the office of recording secretary on the Academy's governing council.
