Visual art
Hughie Lee-Smith
1915–1999
· painter, teacher
African American painter of haunting, surreal cityscapes who built his career in Detroit in the 1940s and 1950s and won top prizes at the DIA.
- Born
Eustis, Florida- Died
Albuquerque, New Mexico
aged 83- Detroit years
- 1940s–1958
- Field
- Visual art
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Born in Florida and raised largely in Cleveland, Lee-Smith trained at the Cleveland School of Art and worked for the WPA before poor pay drove him and his new wife to Detroit. There he studied at the art school of the Detroit Society of Arts and Crafts and at Wayne State University, earning a degree in art education in 1953. His paintings from these years show lone figures, empty lots, crumbling walls and fluttering pennants under wide skies, images of isolation that critics have linked to the postwar industrial city. Detroit recognized him early: the Detroit Institute of Arts gave him painting prizes in 1951 and 1953, and he later recalled that the recognition made him feel judged as an artist rather than by race. He moved to New York in the late 1950s, taught for years at the Art Students League, and in 1967 became only the second African American elected a full member of the National Academy of Design.
Highlights
- Degree in art education from Wayne State University (1953)
- Painting prizes from the Detroit Institute of Arts (1951, 1953)
- Work in the DIA, the Metropolitan Museum and the Smithsonian
- Second African American full member of the National Academy of Design (1967)
02 / Their Detroit places
Their Detroit places 2
Where they lived, worked, performed and liked to hang out. Closed and demolished places stay here too, because they are part of the city's history.
Studied here · until 1953
Wayne State University
Where he completed his degree in art education in 1953.
Related place · 1951–1953
Detroit Institute of Arts (Friday Night Live!)
Awarded him painting prizes and holds his work.