The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 13, 2025

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
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

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."
  • Flea Market (Florida); Private Collector consigning to Swann Galleries, New York [public auction, February 17, 2009]
  • Cole, Mark. "The Cleveland Gallery." Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine 49, no. 7 (September 2009): 5-7. Mentioned: p. 7; Reproduced: p. 5, Cover archive.org
    King-Hammond, Leslie. Hughie Lee-Smith. San Francisco, CA: Pomegranate, 2010. Mentioned: p. 42-46; Reproduced: p. 45, back cover
    Mann, Griffith C. "Acquisitions 2009." Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine 50, no. 2 (March/April 2010): 12-27. Mentioned and reproduced: p. 18 archive.org
    Shearer, Christine Fowler and Steven Litt. Joseph O'Sickey: Unifying Art, Life and Love. Canton, Ohio: Canton Museum of Art, 2013. Reproduced: p. 34
    Cole, Mark, Amy Sparks, and Rebecca Michaels. African American Art: The Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2013. Mentioned and Reproduced: p. 12-13
    Freeman, Nigel. A Modern Migration: African-American Art Since the WPA, from the Lee and Barbara Maimon Collection. Exton, PA: Brilliant Graphics, 2014. Reproduced: p. 39
    Thomas, Adam M. From the Rooftops: John Sloan and the Art of a New Urban Space. University Park, PA; Palmer Museum of Art, 2019. Mentioned: P. 61, 72
    "Past Masters." In Standing on the Shoulders of Giants: Cleveland Arts Prize 2020-2021, edited by Alenka Banco, 19-22. Cleveland: Cleveland Arts Prize, 2020. Reproduced: p. 21
    Als, Hilton, Lauren Haynes, Leslie King-Hammond, Steve Locke, Kellie Jones, LeRonn P. Brooks, and Reggie Burrows Hodges. Hughie Lee-Smith. New York: Karma Books, 2023. Reproduced: p. 153
    Porter, Austin. "Hughie Lee-Smith." In 150 Stories: Lives of the Artists at the League, edited by Stephanie Cassidy, 366-367. New York, NY: The Art Students League of New York, 2025. Reproduced: p. 366
  • From the Rooftops: John Sloan and the Art of a New Urban Space. Palmer Museum of Art, University Park, PA (organizer) (February 5-May 12, 2019); The Hyde Collection, Glens Falls, NY (June 16-September 15, 2019).
  • {{cite web|title=Rooftop|url=false|author=Hughie Lee-Smith|year=1957|access-date=13 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2009.7