ALBERT ALEXANDER SMITH (1896 -1940) Two lithographs.
Sunday--Southern U.S, 1930. 183x253 mm; 7 1/4x10 inches, wide (full ?) margins. Signed and numbered 10/100 in pencil, lower margin * Temptation, 1930. 185x260 mm; 7 1/4x10 1/4 inches, wide (full ?) margins. Signed and numbered 27/100 in pencil, lower margin. Very good impressions of these scarce prints.
Albert Alexander Smith, a talented musician and artist, moved to Paris in 1920 after graduating from the National Academy of Design in New York. Despite his technical skill, these artificial scenes of racial stereotypes show the artist catering to a white American and European audience. Smith could not resist the temptation of the commercial rewards of such work, and the elitism of European society. Smith is one of the few known African-American printmakers known working in the early 1920s. Theresa Leininger-Miller, New Negro Artists in Paris, ill. 115, pp. 232-34.
