Confrontation

Object Details

Artist

Hughie Lee-Smith, born Eustis, FL 1915-died Albuquerque, NM 1999

Exhibition Label

With its half-demolished wall, odd configuration of poles, hula-hoop-like ring, and distant vista of calm water and low mountains, Confrontation presents an incongruous and unsettling image. But something is familiar about the scene; a quality of déjà vu that summons memories of difficult personal encounters. We assume a connection between the two young women, yet it is impossible to know the reason for their estrangement. Throughout his life, Lee-Smith explored the themes of the human condition and the wedges – social, individual, and racial – that thwart human interaction. But in Confrontation, Lee-Smith introduced a sense of possibility. The crumbling wall that separates the women from the landscape is not an insurmountable barrier; the serene world beyond is accessible by skirting boundaries.

African American Art: Harlem Renaissance, Civil Rights Era, and Beyond, 2012

New Acquisition Label

Hughie Lee-Smith's art conveys the alienation and isolation experienced by many African Americans during the middle decades of the twentieth century, yet his work speaks in larger terms about our inability to reach out and connect with others on grounds larger than race. Although Lee-Smith was a direct contemporary of Jacob Lawrence, his art followed a different trajectory, adopting an approach to realism inflected by the sense of isolation and alienation in Edward Hopper's work, and by the surrealistic tendencies of Giorgio di Chirico. That surrealistic edge to his work intensifies the emotional distance conveyed by the people in his paintings.

Over a sixty-year career, Lee-Smith explored psychological corners of the human experience grounded in separation and displacement. As the artist remarked about his work, "I think my paintings have to do with an invisible life—a reality on a different level." Confrontation suggests the tension between the girls and their situation, rather than between the two of them; they radiate alienation—from each other, and from the crumbling infrastructure of their surreal, beachfront surroundings.

Smithsonian American Art Museum, 2009

Credit Line

Smithsonian American Art Museum, Bequest of Henry Ward Ranger through the National Academy of Design

ca. 1970

Object number

2009.27

Restrictions & Rights

Usage conditions apply

Type

Painting

Medium

oil on canvas

Dimensions

33 x 36 in. (83.8 x 91.4 cm)

See more items in

Smithsonian American Art Museum Collection

Department

Painting and Sculpture

Smithsonian American Art Museum

Topic

Landscape\beach

Figure group\female

Architecture Exterior\detail\wall

State of being\other\confrontation

Record ID

saam_2009.27

Metadata Usage (text)

Not determined

GUID (Link to Original Record)

http://n2t.net/ark:/65665/vk7a6ba4196-1717-495e-99d1-43650c4f8e57