Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Untitled

Leon Polk Smith
1906-1996

Untitled

1945
17 x 13 1/2 inches (43.2 x 34.3 cm)
Brush and ink over graphite pencil on paper.
2010.9

Gift of the Leon Polk Smith Foundation.

© Leon Polk Smith / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Notes
Abstract painter Leon Polk Smith developed a distinct formal vocabulary that combined Native American motifs, reflective of his Cherokee heritage, with European modernism---notably the art of Mondrian, whose work Smith first saw in 1936 while attending summer school in New York City. Later, Smith moved beyond the constraints of Neoplasticism to explore a wide range of geometric compositions, often based on interlocking forms. These hard-edged geometric compositions with vast expanses of color anticipated the Minimalist movement of the 1960s.
Inscriptions/Markings
Initialed (LPS) and dated ('45), lower right.
Classification
Century Drawings