Hughie Lee-Smith

I try to make it a thing to discover a new artist or work everytime I visit a major art museum for the first time.Walking thru the fantastic African American wing @ the DIA,I came upon four paintings which stopped me in my tracks.They all featured a lone figure in the midst of a vast,decaying urban landscape.These subjects all seemed to be in a state of contemplation,as if surveying their current dilemmas which surrounded them.It occured to me that this guy wasn't painting everyday urban scenes,but depicting images which were borderline surreal,almost,and I say ALMOST,in the same vein as De Chirico.These are pictoral equivalents to different states of mind and feeling.Hughie's images connect with us since we've all been in the place his subjects find themselves in.Lonely,but with a sense of hope.Quiet reflection in an otherwise loud and fast paced world.Looking far and wide across great spaces to find our place.Onto the book itself,the text is well written and provides a thorough biography of the artist.It puts his various works into context and provides beautiful reproductions.This seems to be the only book on the artist,which is such a shame,however we are lucky that the only one out there hits all the right notes.

What a treasure. This is a wonderful book about one of the world's great neglected artist. Fifty seven full page full color reproductions plus numerous b&w photos and a thoughtful insightful biography. These mysterious and poetic urbanscapes are so haunting and so beautiful that they call to mind the work of Giorgio De Chirico, an artist that Lee Smith greatly admired. There are however no ancient ruins here, there are midwestern tenements and no Italian piazzas, there are inner city roof tops. Lee-Smith's paintings seem to express the loneliness, alienation, dreams and aspirations of African Americans in the twentieth century.These paintings are surreal, they portray the reality within reality. The soul of places and things.

Excellent reproductions of his paintings, as well as insightful discussions of Hughie Lee-Smith

Very, very impressive text which adds perspective and detail about the life and work of an exceptional artist. Leslie King Hammond is an academic to be greatly admired!

The Hughie Lee Smith book was a wonderful compilation of his art and also a fastinating read of the journey of his life.Hugh Lee Smith was an incredibly talented artist as well as a pioneer in his time.

I bought this book because I loved the cover. Hughie Lee Smith and his book are great at so many levels, of composition and color. I am totally pleased with my purchase

A journey into the life of an artist who captured aloneness, peace. An African American in a not so pleasant American.

always buy the david driskell collection purchased 3 it was a great price fab price to give to peers who knew mr smith