Leon Polk Smith

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Leon Polk Smith (born May 20, 1906 in Chickasha , Oklahoma , † December 4, 1996 in New York ) was an American painter . His geometric- constructivist works of art were influenced by Piet Mondrian . He was one of the founders and most important exponents of hard-edge painting.

Life

Smith was born to Chickasha, Indian Territory , the eighth of nine children , a year before its union with Oklahoma and admission to the United States . Both of his parents were of semi- Native American descent from the Cherokee and settled there in the late 19th century. He grew up in the neighborhood of the Choctaw and Chickasaw . After graduating from high school in 1924, he worked for several years on ranches in Oklahoma and in road construction and telephone system construction in Arizona . After his parents' farm was closed and he no longer needed to give financial support, he gave up these activities and devoted himself to training as a teacher.

1931-34 he attended Oklahoma State College in Ada, Oklahoma and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in English. He started teaching in 1934, but soon developed life-threatening polio . 1936-38 he studied at the Teachers College of Columbia University in New York City . After graduating with a Master of Arts degree , he returned to Oklahoma. In 1939 he made a trip to Europe, but without being able to visit National Socialist Germany, in 1940 to Mexico . 1941-42 he held a position as an assistant professor at the Georgia Teachers College in Collegeboro ( Statesboro ), whose policy of racial segregation , however, moved him to resign. 1942–44 Delaware State Inspector for Art Education .

art

Smith began to work as an artist when he was thirty. The first exhibition of fifteen paintings and eighteen watercolors took place in January and February 1941 in the Uptown Galleries of New York. Two further exhibitions followed in 1942. On the first, he showed paintings inspired by his trip to Mexico. In the second, he already turned away from realistic art and towards abstract art.

In 1944 he moved to New York permanently, became Hilla von Rebay's assistant at the Museum of Non-Objective Art and received a Guggenheim scholarship . He worked in Santa Fe (New Mexico) in 1944 , taught at Rollins College in Winter Park (Florida) from 1949–51, and in 1951 stayed in Cuba for seven months . In 1958 he received a grant from the Longview Foundation and in 1968 a grant from the Tamarind Institute.

Smith tries to balance form, color and space in his works. His work is influenced by his Indian roots.

Smith often paints with sharply outlined pure bright colors on shaped canvases , formed canvases , often with round, but also diverse outlines. In many cases he conceives these canvases as individual elements, which he arranges into a more extensive work.

Awards

  • 1966 National Council of Arts Award
  • 1979 Hassam and Speicher Fund Purchase Award
  • 1986 Distinguished alumnus award

Web links

literature

Leon Polk Smith. Raumformen - Spaceforms, exhibition cat. Situation art (for Max Imdahl), art collections of the Ruhr University Bochum, Heidelberg 2011, text by Silke von Berswordt-Wallrabe : Forming space. The work of Leon Polk Smith in the context of his time, pp. 4–44 (German and English)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b wilhelmhack.museum: Leon Polk Smith. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on March 12, 2015 ; Retrieved March 1, 2012 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.wilhelmhack.museum
  2. ^ A b c Leon Polk Smith Foundation: Chronology. Retrieved November 22, 2018 .
  3. ^ A b c Leon Polk Smith Foundation: The Man and the Artist. Retrieved March 2, 2012 .
  4. ^ Arithmeum: Leon Polk Smith - Leon Polk Smith in the Arithmeum. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on August 1, 2015 ; Retrieved March 1, 2012 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.arithmeum.uni-bonn.de
  5. ^ Leon Polk Smith Foundation: Awards. Retrieved March 2, 2012 .
personal data
SURNAME Smith, Leon Polk
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American painter
DATE OF BIRTH May 20, 1906
PLACE OF BIRTH Chickasha , Oklahoma
DATE OF DEATH 4th December 1996
Place of death New York , USA