Leon Polk Smith

Leon Polk Smith was a prominent American artist renowned for his geometrically oriented abstract paintings.

Biography of Leon Polk Smith

Leon Polk Smith was born in 1906 near Chickasha. His parents, William and Samantha Smith, migrated to present-day Oklahoma from Tennessee at the close of the 19th century. They settled on land within the territories of the Chickasaw Nation and Choctaw Nation in Indian Territory.

Following high school, he found employment as a ranch-hand in Oklahoma before transitioning to road construction and telephone system installation in Arizona. Throughout this time, Smith sent money home to assist his parents with their land mortgage. Despite their combined efforts, the family's finances fell short, leading to foreclosure on their property.

Following the foreclosure, relieved of the responsibility of supporting his family financially, Smith pursued higher education at Oklahoma State University in Ada, Oklahoma, with aspirations of becoming a teacher. Upon completing his studies, he relocated to New York City in 1936, where he enrolled at Columbia University Teacher's College.

From 1939 to 1948, Smith sustained himself through teaching and roles in educational administration. He served as the State Supervisor of Art Education in Delaware, held the position of Assistant Professor of Art at the TC University System of Georgia, and taught at various universities.

Smith held his debut exhibition in New York City at the Uptown Gallery in 1941. With the backing of influential gallerists in the late 1950s, by the mid-60s, he had established himself as an independent artistic voice and garnered an audience for his work. His art featured prominently in two significant group exhibitions: "The Responsive Eye" at the Museum of Modern Art in 1965 and "Systemic Painting" at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in 1966.

In 1967, Smith created the first of his Constellations, marking the introduction of multiple panels in his painting compositions.

In 1983, the artist was honored with a Hassam and Speicher purchase fund award from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters in New York for his painting "Red-Black" (1958). 

Before his passing, the artist founded the Leon Polk Smith Foundation with the mission to "preserve and promote the art and legacy of Leon Polk Smith." The artist died in 1996. 

Leon Polk Smith's Art Style

Influenced by Piet Mondrian, Leon Polk Smith's most renowned works feature highly simplified forms, typically composed of just two colors meeting at sharply delineated edges. Often, these compositions are presented on unframed canvases of unconventional shapes.

Regarded as one of the pioneers of the hard-edge style of Minimalist abstract art, Leon Polk Smith gained prominence in the late 1950s and early 1960s with his distinctive series of shaped canvases known as the Correspondences. These large canvases typically feature two vividly-colored painted shapes delineated by precise yet often irregular contours.

By 1967, Smith's artistic exploration expanded to include circular forms and introduced additional panels, leading to his multi-part Constellation series of paintings and drawings, which are celebrated for their exuberance and inventiveness.