Hughie Lee-Smith Sold at Auction Prices

Painter, Wall painter, Lithographer, b. 1914 - d. 1999

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  • Hughie Lee-Smith (1915-1999) Portrait of Man 19 7/8 x 15 7/8 in. (50.5 x 40.3 cm.) (Painted circa 1949.)
    Apr. 30, 2025

    Hughie Lee-Smith (1915-1999) Portrait of Man 19 7/8 x 15 7/8 in. (50.5 x 40.3 cm.) (Painted circa 1949.)

    Est: $20,000 - $30,000

    Hughie Lee-Smith (1915-1999) Portrait of Man signed 'Lee-Smith' (lower left) oil on canvasboard 19 7/8 x 15 7/8 in. (50.5 x 40.3 cm.) Painted circa 1949.

    Bonhams
  • Hughie Lee-Smith "The Promise"
    Apr. 23, 2025

    Hughie Lee-Smith "The Promise"

    Est: $7,500 - $8,000

    Hughie Lee-Smith "The Promise". 1989. Limited Edition Lithograph. Signed by the Artist. Numbered 53/100. 23.25 x 17. Excellent condition

    Bruce Teleky Inc.
  • HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999) Girl Fleeing.
    Apr. 03, 2025

    HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999) Girl Fleeing.

    Est: $150,000 - $250,000

    HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999) Girl Fleeing. Oil on linen canvas, 1959. 660x813 mm; 26x32 inches. Signed, lower right. Provenance Founders Society, Detroit Institute of Arts Rental Gallery, Detroit, 1970. Private collection, Detroit. DuMochelles Galleries, Detroit, June 15, 2015, lot 2019. Private collection, Detroit. Exhibited Detroit Collects: Selections of African American Art from Private Collections, Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, November 12, 2019 – March 15, 2020. Published Hughie Lee-Smith, Karma, New York, p. 162. (illustrated).

    Swann Auction Galleries
  • HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999) Signaler, I.
    Apr. 03, 2025

    HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999) Signaler, I.

    Est: $35,000 - $50,000

    HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999) Signaler, I. Oil on linen canvas, circa 1970. 508x356 mm; 20x14 inches. Signed, lower left. Provenance The estate of the artist. Stella Jones Gallery, New Orleans (label). Private collection, Missouri. Swann Galleries, June 4, 2020, lot 81. Private collection, Massachusetts. 

    Swann Auction Galleries
  • HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999) Fugue.
    Apr. 03, 2025

    HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999) Fugue.

    Est: $3,000 - $5,000

    HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999) Fugue. Color lithograph on wove paper, 1996. 559x838 mm; 22x33 inches, full margins. Signed and numbered 14/175 in pencil, lower margin. Printed and published by J.K. Fine Arts, New York, with the blind stamp lower left.

    Swann Auction Galleries
  • HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999) The Promise.
    Apr. 03, 2025

    HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999) The Promise.

    Est: $4,000 - $6,000

    HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999) The Promise. Color lithograph on cream wove paper, 1989. 590x432 mm; 23¼x17 inches, full margins. Signed and numbered 15/100 in pencil, lower margin. Printed by J. K. Fine Art Editions, New York, with the blind stamp, lower left. Provenance John and Hortense Russell Collection of African American Art (label). Private collection, Colorado.

    Swann Auction Galleries
  • Hughie Lee-Smith "The Promise"
    Mar. 23, 2025

    Hughie Lee-Smith "The Promise"

    Est: $7,500 - $8,000

    Hughie Lee-Smith "The Promise". 1989. Limited Edition Lithograph. Signed by the Artist. Numbered 53/100. 23.25 x 17. Excellent condition

    Bruce Teleky Inc.
  • Hughie Lee-Smith "The Promise"
    Mar. 01, 2025

    Hughie Lee-Smith "The Promise"

    Est: $7,500 - $8,000

    Hughie Lee-Smith "The Promise". 1989. Limited Edition Lithograph. Signed by the Artist. Numbered 53/100. 23.25 x 17. Excellent condition

    Bruce Teleky Inc.
  • Hughie Lee-Smith "The Promise"
    Feb. 08, 2025

    Hughie Lee-Smith "The Promise"

    Est: $7,500 - $8,000

    Hughie Lee-Smith "The Promise". 1989. Limited Edition Lithograph. Signed by the Artist. Numbered 53/100. 23.25 x 17. Excellent condition

    Bruce Teleky Inc.
  • HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999) Untitled (Green Earrings).
    Feb. 06, 2025

    HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999) Untitled (Green Earrings).

    Est: $6,000 - $9,000

    HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999) Untitled (Green Earrings). Watercolor on paper, 1993-94. 215x292 mm; 8½x11½ inches. Signed in ink, lower left. Provenance Stella Jones Gallery, New Orleans, Louisiana (label). Estate of Patricia Scipio-Brim, New York.

    Swann Auction Galleries
  • HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999) Untitled (Mannequin).
    Feb. 06, 2025

    HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999) Untitled (Mannequin).

    Est: $7,000 - $10,000

    HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999) Untitled (Mannequin). Watercolor on paper, 1993-94. 279x381 mm; 11x15 inches. Signed in ink, lower right. Provenance Stella Jones Gallery, New Orleans, Louisiana (label). Estate of Patricia Scipio-Brim, New York.

    Swann Auction Galleries
  • Hughie Lee-Smith "The Promise"
    Jan. 18, 2025

    Hughie Lee-Smith "The Promise"

    Est: $7,500 - $8,000

    Hughie Lee-Smith "The Promise". 1989. Limited Edition Lithograph. Signed by the Artist. Numbered 53/100. 23.25 x 17. Excellent condition

    Bruce Teleky Inc.
  • Hughie Lee-Smith "The Promise"
    Dec. 29, 2024

    Hughie Lee-Smith "The Promise"

    Est: $7,500 - $8,000

    Hughie Lee-Smith "The Promise". 1989. Limited Edition Lithograph. Signed by the Artist. Numbered 53/100. 23.25 x 17. Excellent condition

    Bruce Teleky Inc.
  • HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999) Woman in Profile with Two Masks.
    Nov. 26, 2024

    HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999) Woman in Profile with Two Masks.

    Est: $4,000 - $6,000

    HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999) Woman in Profile with Two Masks. Watercolor and pencil on wove paper, 1993. 230x310 mm; 9x12¼ inches. Provenance Collection of the artist. The estate of the artist, with the blind stamp twice lower right and the ink stamp verso. Thence by descent, private collection.

    Swann Auction Galleries
  • HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999) Untitled.
    Nov. 26, 2024

    HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999) Untitled.

    Est: $40,000 - $60,000

    HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999) Untitled. Oil with paper collage on linen canvas, 1995. 965x1168 mm; 38x46 inches. Signed in oil, lower left. Provenance Estate of the artist. Thence by descent to current owner. Exhibited "Hughie-Lee Smith: Overview, 1949-1995," Bristol-Myers Squibb Gallery, Princeton, New Jersey, October 15 - November 26, 1995.

    Swann Auction Galleries
  • Hughie Lee-Smith (1915-1999): Flight II
    Nov. 21, 2024

    Hughie Lee-Smith (1915-1999): Flight II

    Est: $15,000 - $20,000

    Oil on canvas, 1985, signed 'Lee-Smith' lower left. 18 x 24 in., unframed. Note: Our thanks to the artist's daughter for providing the date of execution for this work.

    STAIR
  • HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999) Negro Child.
    Oct. 03, 2024

    HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999) Negro Child.

    Est: $20,000 - $30,000

    HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999) Negro Child. Oil on masonite board, 1953. 254x203 mm; 10x8 inches. Signed and dated in oil, lower left. Provenance: private collection, Michigan; private collection, Massachusetts, acquired at Swann Galleries, October 9, 2014. Exhibited: Garelick's Gallery, Detroit, with a partially typed label, attached to the frame verso, (supplying the title).

    Swann Auction Galleries
  • HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999) Untitled (The Dancer).
    Oct. 03, 2024

    HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999) Untitled (The Dancer).

    Est: $100,000 - $150,000

    HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999) Untitled (The Dancer). Oil on masonite board, 1948. 760x605 mm; 23½x17¾ inches. Signed and dated in oil, upper left. Provenance: private collection, California. This beautiful painting is a scarce 1940s figurative painting by Hughie Lee-Smith. His depiction of a resting ballet dancer is a fascinating subject. The painting stands apart from the figurative paintings, primarily nude studies, that are known from this period. The austere space, cool palette and subtle tonal brushwork show Lee-Smith's growing sophistication and suggest the stylization and surrealism that characterize his mature work. This scene recalls Lee-Smith's early experiences in dance and theater while working at the Playhouse Settlement (named Karamu House in 1941) during the WPA period in Cleveland. Lee-Smith taught art at Karamu House in the late 1930s in return for the full scholarship to the Cleveland School of Art (now the Art Institute of Cleveland) that the Gilpin Players awarded him in 1935. Inspired by the Gilpin Players, a black acting troupe, Lee-Smith also co-founded an inter-racial modern dance troupe there. While living in Detroit, Lee-Smith was actively exhibiting his work in Chicago, Cleveland and Detroit in the late 1940s - his first solo exhibition was at the Southside Community Art Center of Chicago in 1945. In 1948-49, Lee-Smith was working in the Ford factory at River Rouge in Dearborn, MI. After serving in the United States Navy during World War II, he used funds from the G.I. Bill to complete his bachelor's degree at Wayne State University in Detroit in 1953.

    Swann Auction Galleries
  • HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999) Frederick Douglass.
    Oct. 03, 2024

    HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999) Frederick Douglass.

    Est: $5,000 - $7,000

    HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999) Frederick Douglass. Graphite and pencil on wove paper, circa 1976. 432x356 mm; 17x14 inches (sheet). Signed in pencil, lower right. Provenance: the collection of the artist; the estate of the artist; thence by descent, private collection. This drawing is a preparatory study for Hughie Lee-Smith's 1976 portrait painting Frederick Douglass, commissioned by the Banneker-Douglas Museum, Annapolis, MD.

    Swann Auction Galleries
  • HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999) Untitled (Faces, Shadows and Folded Screen).
    Oct. 03, 2024

    HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999) Untitled (Faces, Shadows and Folded Screen).

    Est: $4,000 - $6,000

    HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999) Untitled (Faces, Shadows and Folded Screen). Watercolor and ink on wove paper, circa 1993-9. 257x355 mm; 10⅛x14 inches. Provenance: the collection of the artist; the estate of the artist, with the ink stamp verso; thence by descent, private collection.

    Swann Auction Galleries
  • Hughie Lee-Smith, 1915-1999, Avocado and Banana
    Sep. 14, 2024

    Hughie Lee-Smith, 1915-1999, Avocado and Banana

    Est: $35,000 - $45,000

    Hughie Lee-Smith 1915-1999 Avocado and Banana 1975 acrylic on canvas 15-3/4 x 19-3/4 inches signed and dated Provenance: private collection, Detroit, MI

    Black Art Auction
  • Hughie Lee-Smith, 1915-1999, Storm
    Sep. 14, 2024

    Hughie Lee-Smith, 1915-1999, Storm

    Est: $4,000 - $6,000

    Hughie Lee-Smith 1915-1999 Storm 1939 linocut on paper 5-3/4 x 8-1/2 inches (image) 9-3/4 x 11-1/2 inches (sheet) signed, titled, dated Label verso: Karamu Studio of Karamu House, 2239 E. 38th St. Cleveland, Ohio Lee-Smith made another print the same year, titled Landscape No. 1, which is similar and he also exhibited it at Karamu. This is an extremely rare, early, and desirable image by Lee-Smith from his time in Cleveland.

    Black Art Auction
  • Hughie Lee-Smith (American, 1915-1999) Watercolor on Paper, 1957, "Landscape (Barn)", H 12.25" W 16.75"
    Sep. 13, 2024

    Hughie Lee-Smith (American, 1915-1999) Watercolor on Paper, 1957, "Landscape (Barn)", H 12.25" W 16.75"

    Est: $6,000 - $8,000

    Signed and dated lower right. Frame Measurements H 22.5" W 28.5" Provenance: Gift from the Artist to a Private Collector, Detroit, Michigan; By descent to Prominent Art Collector, Detroit, Michigan.

    DuMouchelles
  • Hughie Lee-Smith, The Cliff No. 2
    May. 22, 2024

    Hughie Lee-Smith, The Cliff No. 2

    Est: $30,000 - $50,000

    Hughie Lee-Smith The Cliff No. 2 oil on canvas 16.125 h x 24 w in (41 x 61 cm) Signed to upper left corner 'Lee-Smith'. Provenance: Janet Nessler Gallery, New York | Acquired in the Detroit metropolitan area in 1968, Private Collection | Thence by descent This work will ship from Lambertville, New Jersey.

    Rago Arts and Auction Center
  • Hughie Lee-Smith (1915-1999), "Storm," 1939
    May. 07, 2024

    Hughie Lee-Smith (1915-1999), "Storm," 1939

    Est: $3,000 - $5,000

    Hughie Lee-Smith (1915-1999) "Storm," 1939 Linoleum cut on paper From the edition of unknown size Signed, titled, and dated in pencil in the lower margin: Hughie Lee-Smith

    John Moran Auctioneers
  • HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999) Young Man in Red Bandana.
    Apr. 04, 2024

    HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999) Young Man in Red Bandana.

    Est: $4,000 - $6,000

    HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999) Young Man in Red Bandana. Watercolor on thick cream wove paper, circa 1993. 181x260 mm; 7⅛x10 ¼ inches. Provenance: the collection of the artist; estate of the artist; thence by descent, private collection.

    Swann Auction Galleries
  • HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999) Untitled (Study of a Woman in a Landscape).
    Apr. 04, 2024

    HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999) Untitled (Study of a Woman in a Landscape).

    Est: $30,000 - $40,000

    HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999) Untitled (Study of a Woman in a Landscape). Oil and pencil on linen canvas, 1991. 457x559 mm; 18x22 inches. Signed in oil, lower left. Provenance: the estate of the artist; thence by descent to the current owner; acquired from Swann Auction Galleries, December 10, 2020, private collection, California. This painting epitomizes the optimisim found in Hughie Lee-Smith's late-career painting. The peaceful atmosphere of the expansive sky above a coastal landscape is punctuated only by the movement of the billowing clouds and fluttering hair of the young woman. This work represents the final period of Lee-Smith's body of work - his enigmatic and isolated figures are now actors in landscapes full of intrigue and beauty.

    Swann Auction Galleries
  • HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999) Young Woman Singing.
    Apr. 04, 2024

    HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999) Young Woman Singing.

    Est: $3,000 - $5,000

    HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999) Young Woman Singing. Pencil on wove paper, circa 1980-85. 305x229 mm; 12x9 inches. Signed in pencil, lower right. Provenance: the collection of the artist; the estate of the artist; thence by descent, private collection. Another drawing of this same subject was sold at Swann Auction Galleries, October 7, 2010, lot 116.

    Swann Auction Galleries
  • HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999) Ball Player.
    Apr. 04, 2024

    HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999) Ball Player.

    Est: $150,000 - $250,000

    HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999) Ball Player. Oil on linen canvas, 1970. 610x813 mm; 24x32 inches. Signed in oil, lower left. Provenance: collection of the artist, New York; the estate of the artist; acquired from Stella Jones Gallery, New Orleans, private collection, Georgia. Exhibited: Three Masters: Eldzier Cortor, Hughie Lee-Smith, Archibald John Motley, Jr., Kenkeleba Gallery, New York, May 22 - July 17, 1988; Hughie Lee-Smith: A Retrospective, Ogunquit Museum of American Art, Ogunquit, Maine, July 1 - August 1, 1997 (traveling exhibition); Stages of Influence: The Universal Theatre of Hughie Lee-Smith, University of New Mexico Art Museum, Albuquerque, NM, February 6 - June 3, 2001. Illustrated: Michael Culver, Hughie Lee-Smith: A Retrospective, Ogunquit Museum of American Art; Hilton Als/Lauren Haynes/Leslie King-Hammond/Steve Locke. Hughie Lee-Smith, Karma, New York, p. 221. Ball Player is a significant, mid-career painting by Hughie Lee-Smith and depicts an essential aspect of his oeuvre. Throughout his practice, Lee-Smith has portrayed youth playing or improvising games, from balancing sticks and tires to flying kites and playing ball games. His subjects find moments of pleasure and escape despite their environs - similar scenes are found in his Street Scene, 1952 and Along the Tracks, 1953. Here Lee-Smith depicts a youth playing hand ball in a particularly desolate urban space. A very similar boarded-up arched entrance appears in the 1970s Lee-Smith paintings Woman with Balloons and Wall Variation II. Lee-Smith effectively created a new type of American landscape - an existential urban space in which the Black figure was the protagonist. His combination of figure painting and social-realist depiction is an important precursor to the paintings of Ernie Barnes and Kerry James Marshall.

    Swann Auction Galleries
  • HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999) Desolation.
    Apr. 04, 2024

    HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999) Desolation.

    Est: $3,000 - $5,000

    HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999) Desolation. Lithograph on cream wove paper, circa 1937-39. 184x248 mm; 7¼x9¾ inches, full margins. Signed, titled and numbered 7/27 in pencil, lower margin. Published by the Federal Art Project, WPA, Cleveland. A very good, dark impression of this scarce print; another impression of Desolation is in the GSA Fine Arts Collection at Case Western Reserve University.

    Swann Auction Galleries
  • HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999) Untitled (Portrait on a Palette).
    Apr. 04, 2024

    HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999) Untitled (Portrait on a Palette).

    Est: $5,000 - $7,000

    HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999) Untitled (Portrait on a Palette). Oil on a wooden artist's palette, circa 1970s. Approximately 305x400 mm; 12 ½x15¾ inches. Signed in oil, lower right. Provenance: private collection, Hoboken, NJ; acquired at Rago Auctions, February 9, 2008; private collection, Philadelphia. Exhibited: The Palette Reveals the Artist: Grumbacher Palette Collection, The Long Island Museum, October 30, 2004 - January 30, 2005, The Butler Institute of American Art, March 13 - May 1, 2005, The Art Students League of New York, June 1 - 27, 2005, with the labels on the frame back.

    Swann Auction Galleries
  • HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999) Untitled (Woman on Tipped Stool).
    Apr. 04, 2024

    HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999) Untitled (Woman on Tipped Stool).

    Est: $4,000 - $6,000

    HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999) Untitled (Woman on Tipped Stool). Graphite and pencil on buff wove paper, 1938. 305x229 mm; 12x9 inches. Signed and dated in pencil, lower right. Provenance: the estate of the artist; thence by descent to a private collection.

    Swann Auction Galleries
  • HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999) Bather.
    Apr. 04, 2024

    HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999) Bather.

    Est: $75,000 - $100,000

    HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999) Bather. Oil on masonite board, 1954. 262x362 mm; 10⅜x14¼ inches. Incised signature and date in oil, lower left. Provenance: gift of the artist to Cornelia Foulkrad (the model for the bather), Detroit, MI; Seth Taffae Fine Art, New York; private collection. Illustrated: Leslie King-Hammond, "Hughie Lee-Smith," Pomegranate Press, California, 2010, plate 27; p. 48. Hughie Lee-Smith's painting, Bather, is an intimate shoreline scene of three figures at a lake-side beach. Lee-Smith's composition, with its diagonal alignment and uniform spatial alignment of the figures, gives a broad sense of depth perception. In her 2010 monograph, Dr. Leslie King-Hammond writes, " Bather is stunning in the simplicity of its spacious, airy landscape, yet startling in the brevity of a single gesture; why is the subject hiding her face?" King-Hammond p. 46.

    Swann Auction Galleries
  • Hughie Lee-Smith (American, 1915-1999) Oil on Canvas "Still Life with Wine Bottle And Fruit", H 26" W 18"
    Nov. 17, 2023

    Hughie Lee-Smith (American, 1915-1999) Oil on Canvas "Still Life with Wine Bottle And Fruit", H 26" W 18"

    Est: $7,000 - $10,000

    Signed lower left. Still life arrangement with wine bottle, pears and oranges on silver tray. Frame Measurements: H 30" W 22". Provenance: Property from the Estate of Frances Alger Boyer, Grosse Pointe Farms, MI; By Descent to Present Owner, Grosse Pointe Farms, MI.

    DuMouchelles
  • HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999) Man on a Bench Reading.
    Oct. 19, 2023

    HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999) Man on a Bench Reading.

    Est: $25,000 - $35,000

    HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999) Man on a Bench Reading. Oil on linen canvas, 1998-99. 711x864 mm; 28x34 inches. Provenance: the collection of the artist; estate of the artist; thence by descent, private collection. The enigmatic motif of a person seated on a bench with a placard appears in several of Hughie Lee-Smith's late paintings, including Silhouette, 1995 and Silhouette and Shadow, 1997.

    Swann Auction Galleries
  • HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999) Harriet Tubman.
    Oct. 19, 2023

    HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999) Harriet Tubman.

    Est: $5,000 - $7,000

    HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999) Harriet Tubman. Pencil on wove paper, circa 1980. 279x216 mm; 11x8 1/2 inches. Signed in pencil, lower left. Provenance: the collection of the artist; the estate of the artist; thence by descent, private collection. This drawing was a preparatory study for Hughie Lee-Smith's 1980 portrait painting Harriet Tubman commissioned by the Banneker-Douglas Museum, Annapolis, MD.

    Swann Auction Galleries
  • HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999) Frederick Douglass.
    Oct. 19, 2023

    HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999) Frederick Douglass.

    Est: $5,000 - $7,000

    HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999) Frederick Douglass. Graphite and pencil on wove paper, circa 1976. 356x330 mm; 14x13 inches. Signed in pencil, lower left. Provenance: the collection of the artist; the estate of the artist; thence by descent, private collection. This drawing was a preparatory study for Hughie Lee-Smith's 1976 portrait painting Frederick Douglass commissioned by the Banneker-Douglas Museum, Annapolis, MD.

    Swann Auction Galleries
  • HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999) Man, Facing Left.
    Oct. 19, 2023

    HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999) Man, Facing Left.

    Est: $3,000 - $5,000

    HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999) Man, Facing Left. Oil monotype on wove paper, 1966. 367x235 mm; 13 1/4x9 1/4 inches. Signed and dated in pencil, lower right. Provenance: the collection of the artist; estate of the artist; thence by descent, private collection.

    Swann Auction Galleries
  • HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999) Young Man in Green Bandana.
    Oct. 19, 2023

    HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999) Young Man in Green Bandana.

    Est: $4,000 - $6,000

    HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999) Young Man in Green Bandana. Watercolor on thick cream wove paper, circa 1993. 181x260 mm; 7 1/8x10 1/4inches, full margins. Provenance: the collection of the artist; estate of the artist; thence by descent, private collection.

    Swann Auction Galleries
  • HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999) Torso and Ribbon.
    Oct. 19, 2023

    HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999) Torso and Ribbon.

    Est: $4,000 - $6,000

    HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999) Torso and Ribbon. Pencil on wove paper, circa 1986-87. 203x279 mm; 8x11 inches. Signed in pencil, lower right. Provenance: the collection of the artist; estate of the artist; thence by descent, private collection. This image of a classical statue of a male torso and a ribbon appears in both Lee-Smith's 1986 painting Prelude and his 1987 Bondage.

    Swann Auction Galleries
  • HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999) Untitled (Two Young Men on a Beach).
    Oct. 19, 2023

    HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999) Untitled (Two Young Men on a Beach).

    Est: $120,000 - $180,000

    HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999) Untitled (Two Young Men on a Beach). Oil on masonite board, 1954. 610x914 mm; 18x24 inches. Incised signature and date in oil, upper left. Provenance: private collection, Florida. This excellent, evocative painting by Hughie Lee-Smith epitomizes the artist's career-defining body of work from Detroit in the early 1950s. The year earlier, Lee-Smith was awarded by the Detroit Institute of Arts its prestigious Founders Prize, a national painting award, for his painting The Piper, 1953, now in their permanent collection. Painting with command of the medium, Lee-Smith here deftly displays his mature style of the mid-1950s. In this imaginary landscape, he explores the tension and space between two crouching figures on a lakeside beach - a young white man in the foreground and a young black man at the center right. Lee-Smith has included many elements that he will use to construct his scenes in the years to come: including the telephone poles, a downed wire, a distant shore line at the horizon and a beautiful but forbidding sky.

    Swann Auction Galleries
  • Hughie Lee-Smith, Still Life with Potted Plant
    May. 18, 2023

    Hughie Lee-Smith, Still Life with Potted Plant

    Est: $5,000 - $8,000

    Hughie Lee-Smith Still Life with Potted Plant 1944 oil on canvas 20 h x 16 w in (51 x 41 cm) Signed and dated to upper right 'Hughie Lee Smith Jan '44'. Signed, dated and inscribed to verso 'To Leroy, With Memories of Ford Production Foundry Days, Hughie Lee Smith Jan '44'. This work will ship from Lambertville, New Jersey.

    Rago Arts and Auction Center
  • Hughie Lee-Smith (American, 1915-1999) Seascape, 1954 Oil on Masonite 19 x 36 i
    May. 12, 2023

    Hughie Lee-Smith (American, 1915-1999) Seascape, 1954 Oil on Masonite 19 x 36 i

    Est: $80,000 - $120,000

    Hughie Lee-Smith (American, 1915-1999) Seascape, 1954 Oil on Masonite 19 x 36 inches (48.3 x 91.4 cm) Signed and dated lower right: Lee-Smith / 54 Property of an Important Midwestern Collector PROVENANCE: Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, New York; Jonathan Boos Gallery, New York; Acquired by the present owner from the above. EXHIBITED: Long Beach Museum of Art, Long Beach, California , "Exaltations: 20th Century Masterworks by African-American Artist," June 3-August 29, 1995. Hughie Lee-Smith is renowned for his highly realistic and somewhat surreal paintings of figures in desolate urban landscapes that are fraught with psychological tension. Often compared to Giorgio de Chirico and Edward Hopper, the artist often implied social tensions through an atmosphere of psychological alienation in his paintings. In his own words: "...I began to lose my youthful dream of a better world-free of racism, free of the threat of instantaneous cremation of the bomb-and feed on a slow burning disillusionment. As a consequence, my work turned inward, and I began to seek some sort of essence to it all." Lee-Smith was born in Eustis, Florida and raised in Cleveland, Ohio. He received early artistic training at the Karamu House, the Cleveland School of Art (later renamed the Cleveland Institute of Art), and the Detroit Society of Arts and Crafts School. From 1938 to 1939 Lee-Smith was employed by the Ohio Federal Arts Project. After serving in the United States Navy during World War II, he used funds from the G.I. Bill to earn his B.S. from Wayne State University in Detroit (1953). Although his enigmatic work garnered critical recognition at group exhibitions and won numerous prizes, he largely supported himself by teaching in a variety of settings. He left the Midwest in 1958 for New York, living in the East Village while teaching in the Princeton, New Jersey school system. From 1969 to 1971, he was artist-in-residence and then acting art department chair at Howard University, during a period when the Black Arts Movement was in ascendancy. Lee-Smith also spent fifteen years as an instructor at the Art Students League. Inspired by the urban blight he encountered in Detroit, Lee-Smith created mesmerizing scenes of desolation and isolation. Lee-Smith acknowledges that his experience of solitude may be connected to his black identity and that his sense of disconnection is largely unconscious. He states, "In my case, aloneness, I think, has stemmed from the fact that I'm black. Unconsciously it has a lot to do with a sense of alienation." (https://americanart.si.edu) Despite his powerful expressions of concern about racial inequalities, he uses his art to convey feelings about his broader social and cultural rifts that affect all people. Throughout his career, the artist has remained fascinated by humanity's relationship with the world. His works typically feature black and white characters who are alone in their surroundings and disconnected from each other. Seascape of 1954 is an enigmatic work that showcases the artist's mature style of realism and surrealism first developed in the early 1950s. The dreamlike scene depicts the rocky shores of a lake, perhaps Michigan or nearby Ontario, places he often observed for pictorial inspiration. On a dilapidated wooden pier, a solitary young woman wearing a green dress stands in a graceful, dancer-like pose. As many of Lee-Smith's works are autobiographical, the female figure may represent his first wife, Mabel Louise Everett. The couple had divorced a year prior to the completion of Seascape. Facing the viewer, the woman's body is half illuminated by the fading sunlight that casts dark shadows throughout the foreground. Juxtaposed with the darkness are tall, upright sticks with fluttering red ribbons dancing in the breeze. The lively ribbons

    Heritage Auctions
  • HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915-1999) The Other Side oil on canvas 36 x 48 in. (91.4
    Apr. 21, 2023

    HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915-1999) The Other Side oil on canvas 36 x 48 in. (91.4

    Est: $50,000 - $70,000

    HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915-1999) The Other Side oil on canvas 36 x 48 in. (91.4 x 121.9 cm.)

    Christie's
  • HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999) Landscape No. 1.
    Apr. 06, 2023

    HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999) Landscape No. 1.

    Est: $5,000 - $7,000

    HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999) Landscape No. 1. Linoleum cut on cream wove paper, 1939. 229x267 mm; 9x10 1/2 inches, full margins. Signed, titled and numbered "46" in pencil, lower margin. Provenance: the artist; Russell and Rowena Jelliffe, Cleveland (founders of the settlement house in Cleveland that became Karamu House); by descent, Dr. Roger and Joyce Jelliffe, Pasadena, CA; estate of Joyce Jelliffe, Pasadena, CA (2021); private collection, Cleveland. Exhibited: Karamu Studio of Karamu House, Cleveland, with the original printed label on a fragment of the backing board. Lee-Smith produced his first important prints at Karamu House in Cleveland in the late 1930s. Founded as a "settlement house" in 1915 by Oberlin College and University of Chicago graduates Rowena and Russell Jeliffe, Karamu House (as it was later renamed) was an important center for the training of African American artists in the 1930s and 1940s, and was sponsored by the Works Progress Administration for a time. Landscape No. 1 is an abstracted and modernist interpretation of the Central neighborhood surrounding Karamu House. An exhibition exploring the history of Black artists who worked at Karamu House is currently being organized by the Cleveland Museum of Art.

    Swann Auction Galleries
  • HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999) The Promise.
    Apr. 06, 2023

    HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999) The Promise.

    Est: $4,000 - $6,000

    HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999) The Promise. Color lithograph on cream wove paper, 1989. 590x432 mm; 23 1/4x17 inches, full margins. A hors commerce, aside from the edition of 100. Signed and inscribed "HC" in pencil, lower margin. Printed by J. K. Fine Art Editions, New York, with the blind stamp, lower left.

    Swann Auction Galleries
  • HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999) Fugue.
    Apr. 06, 2023

    HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999) Fugue.

    Est: $3,000 - $5,000

    HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999) Fugue. Color lithograph on wove paper, 1996. 559x838 mm; 22x33 inches, full margins. Artist's proof, aside from the edition of 175. Signed, dated, and inscribed "To My Darling Wife Patricia" in pencil, lower margin. Printed and published by J.K. Fine Arts, New York, with the blind stamp, lower left.

    Swann Auction Galleries
  • HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999) Nude.
    Apr. 06, 2023

    HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999) Nude.

    Est: $30,000 - $40,000

    HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (1915 - 1999) Nude. Oil on masonite board, 1949. 610x457 mm; 24x18 inches. Signed and dated in oil, upper right. Provenance: the collection of the artist; estate of the artist; thence by descent, private collection. Exhibited: Three Masters: Eldzier Cortor, Hughie Lee-Smith, Archibald John Motley, Jr., Kenkeleba Gallery, New York, May 22 - July 17, 1988, with the exhibiton label verso. This early oil painting is one of the artist's few known nude paintings. This modern nude shows the development of Hughie Lee-Smith's painting of the figure by the late 1940s. Lee-Smith was actively exhibiting his work in Chicago, Cleveland and Detroit in the late 1940s. After serving in the United States Navy during World War II, he used funds from the G.I. Bill to complete his bachelor's degree at Wayne State University in Detroit in 1953.

    Swann Auction Galleries
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