?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 40,000 - $ 60,000
HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999) Prelude.
Oil on linen canvas, 1986. 965x1168 mm; 38x46 inches. Signed in oil, lower left.
Provenance: the estate of the artist; thence by descent to the current owner.
Exhibited: June Kelly Gallery, New York, with the label on the frame back.
This large canvas epitomizes the Surrealism found in Hughie Lee-Smith's late-career painting. The classical architecture and sculpture suggests the enigmatic Surrealism of a De Chirico painting or Fellini film. The peaceful atmosphere of a sun-drenched afternoon is punctuated by billowing clouds and fluttering ribbons, and emphasizes the frozen motion of a young woman. Prelude represents the final period of Lee-Smith's body of work - his enigmatic and isolated figures are now actors in landscapes full of intrigue and beauty.
