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Details / Information for Rooftop

Rooftop

1957
(American, 1915–1999)
America
oil on masonite
Unframed: 61 x 63.5 cm (24 x 25 in.)
Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund 2009.7
© Estate of Hughie Lee-Smith / Licensed by VAGA at ARS, NY
Location: 228B Cleveland Artists
Copyright
This artwork is known to be under copyright.

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Did You Know?

Hughie Lee-Smith ran track with fellow student Jesse Owens at East Technical High School in Cleveland.

Description

Trained in Cleveland before launching his mature career in Detroit and New York, Lee-Smith frequently painted isolated—and often solitary—figures amid desolate cityscapes and landscapes. They have pronounced overtones of introspection, which the artist attributed, in part, to his experiences navigating the forces and effects of racism: "In my case, aloneness, I think, has stemmed from the fact that I’m Black. Unconsciously it has a lot to do with alienation."
Oil painting with defined but visible brushstrokes of a person standing on the rooftop of an orange-brown brick, squared building in the lower third and in front of a grey-blue sky in the upper two thirds. The figure has a medium-dark skin tone and faces our right, looking to their left and wearing a white t-shirt and dark trousers. Two, well-defined, fluffy white clouds float in the sky, one painted just above the person's head.

Rooftop

1957

Hughie Lee-Smith

(American, 1915–1999)
America

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