?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 7,000 - $ 10,000
HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999) Untitled.
Watercolor on thin Japan paper, 1936. 216x224 mm; 8 1/2x8 7/8 inches. Signed in pencil, lower left.
Provenance: Drs. L. Morris and Adrienne L. Jones; thence by descent, private collection, New Jersey. L. Morris Jones, M.D. (1929 - 2015) and Adrienne Lash Jones, Ph.D. (1935 - 2018) married in 1957 and moved to Cleveland in 1958. Dr. Lash Jones was a tenured professor of Africana studies at Oberlin College, where she became head of the Africana department (formerly known as Black Studies) for 20 years. Lash Jones became a prominent figure in the Cleveland art scene - including being a long time board member of the Cleveland Museum of Art and Karamu House - where she championed countless efforts to support Black art and culture.
Illustrated: Leslie King-Hammond,Hughie Lee-Smith (The David C. Driskell Series of African American Art, Volume VIII, plate 4, p. 4.
This extremely scarce work on paper is the earliest painting we have located that displays Hughie Lee-Smith's interest in depicting isolated figures in an urban landscape. In 1936, Hughie Lee-Smith was in his second year as a student at the Cleveland School of Art where he was awarded a scholarship by the Gilpin Players at Karamu Theater and Settlement House. As part of his scholarship, he also taught art at Karamu House in Cleveland until 1939, alongside other artists Charles Sallée, Elmer Brown, and William E. Smith. Lee-Smith graduated with honors in 1938, and then won a scholarship to continue studying for a fifth year. Lee-Smith's noteworthy rise was recognized by his inclusion in Alain Locke's The Negro in Art, published in 1940.
