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HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999)
Portrait of a Boy
.
Oil on linen canvas, 1938. 610x457 mm; 24x18 inches. Signed and dated in oil, lower left.
Provenance: estate of the artist; thence by descent to the current owner.
Exhibited: Stella Jones Gallery, New Orleans, at the National Black Art Show, NewYork, 2007, with
the label on the frame back.
Illustrated: King-Hammond, Leslie.
Hughie Lee-Smith
, plate 6, page 18.
Portrait of a Boy
is an exceptional painting by Lee-Smith, a rare oil from his Cleveland period of the
late 1930s, and one of his earliest paintings to come to auction.The talent of an artist on the cusp of
his career is evident. In 1938, Lee-Smith had just graduated from the Cleveland School of Art with
honors, where he studied under Clarence Carter, and won a scholarship to continue studying for a
fifth year. He was also teaching art at Karamu House in Cleveland, joining Charles Sallée, Elmer
Brown, andWilliam E. Smith.The group all receivedWPA commissions in printmaking - Lee-Smith
in lithography - from Clarence Carter, now the OhioWPA district director. Lee-Smith’s noteworthy
rise was soon recognized by his inclusion in Alain Locke’s
The Negro in Art
, published in 1940.
Portrait of a Boy
is not only of Lee-Smith’s earliest portraits to come to auction, it is an important early
work in Lee-Smith’s career-long interest in depicting isolated youth. Dr. King-Hammond describes
how this painting and Lee-Smith’s
Coal Breakers
, also from 1938, “reveal his preoccupation with
social realist themes” - she describes Lee-Smith capturing “an attitude of boredom and restlessness.”
The Depression enabled more American artists to embrace social-realism, and made paintings that
were socially and politically engaging relevant. Lee-Smith rejected the American scene painting of
the time, and showed the struggles of young African-American men in their harsh, new world.
Marion p. 21; King-Hammond p. 16.
[30,000/40,000]
Hughie Lee-Smith,
Study for Seated Boy,
1937.
Courtesy of the Hughie Lee-Smith estate.