About this artwork
Hughie Lee-Smith here conjured an unsettling scene: the stormy blues of the sky, the rocky terrain, and the unknowable relationship between the walking woman and the distant man. The artist often situated enigmatic people in bleak landscapes, and he aligned these morose visualizations with his experiences as an African American man: “Unconsciously it has a lot to do with a sense of alienation … and in all blacks there is an awareness of their isolation from the mainstream of society.” Anonymous and disconnected from one another, the figures face an austere existence—evocative, perhaps, of the human condition amid a turbulent modern world.
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Status
- On View, Gallery 262
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Department
- Arts of the Americas
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Artist
- Hughie Lee-Smith
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Title
- Desert Forms
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Place
- United States (Artist's nationality:)
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Date
- 1957
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Medium
- Oil on Masonite
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Dimensions
- 45.7 × 60.1 cm (18 × 24 in.)
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Credit Line
- American Art Sales Proceeds Fund; through prior acquisitions of Charles S. Peterson Purchase Prize and Charles D. Ettinger funds, and Mr. and Mrs. Frederick G. Wacker Jr. Endowment Fund
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Reference Number
- 2011.334
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Copyright
- © Estate of Hughie Lee-Smith/ARS (Artist Rights Society), New York
Extended information about this artwork
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