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with their backs turned to the viewer, flying banners and an L-shaped, cracked concrete pier. Lee-
Smith’s continued interest in the subject of solitude—both psychological and social—combined
with the death of his wife in 1961, leads to a change in his painting style.The artist described the
transition himself:“The metaphysical phase really began in earnest in the early 1960s. In an almost
unconscious, not at all deliberate way, it crept in. I was still with Janet Nessler Gallery, and it became
much more pronounced in the late sixties. In that period my whole palette changed.There was the
introduction of more white—so that the greys began to take over and a kind of fatality, I felt,
developed in terms of the paint values themselves. I suppose this was an unconscious effort on my
part to gain a feeling of forlornness. I never sat down and thought about it.” Bearden/Henderson
p. 333.
[30,000/40,000]