Hughie Lee-Smith

"Untitled Landscape" Early work, African-American, Colors, Mountains

1950

SALE ONE WEEK ONLY "City Beyond the Bluffs" is a colorful dynamic example of Maccoy's Mid-20th century paintings. Considered Mid-Century Modern it also has Cubist style in the bluffs. Unframed the piece measures 25 x 42. Guy Crittington McKay was born to Clifford McKay and Clara Angeline Young who was the granddaughter of Brigham Young. Clifford McKay later changed the family name to McCoy. Later on Guy changed his name to Maccoy. Guy Maccoy...

SALE ONE WEEK ONLY “Study of Mt. Vesuvius" is a small intimate painting of an active volcano that has at times wrecked great destruction. As seen from a distance, it is a calm blue ...

"The Model #5" is a pastel on paper showing a nude female figure emerging from what appears to be an evening darkening mist where a distant landscape is suggested or perhaps she is e...

SALE ONE WEEK ONLY “Springtown Reflections No. I” depicts the moment of change in the weather moving from harsh winter to the first warming days of spring melting the snow. The title suggests a moment to pause in farm life before the coming spring planting and also suggests a time of mental reflection on life and work. The puddles of melting snow reflect the buildings in the scene. The muted colors and slightly off kilter structures cause the buildings to appear worn but sturdy, a soft idyllic scene of rural life. Helmut Gransow...

“Ripple Effect” captures the beauty and wonder Catherine Peet describes she experienced as a child along with the whimsy of very small figures on a lily...

"Squares and Things" painted by the eminent artist, Charles McGee, literally breaths his African American heritage and his extraordinary vibrant use of colors. Provenance is The Arwin Galleries on Grand River in Detroit, Michigan - label on verso. This early painting of McGee's shows his mastery in creating a painting in the style of the French Impressionist Edouard Manet, "Still Life with Melon and Peaches" located in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, and in the style of Fauvist/Expressionist painter Henry Matisse, "Still Life with Blue Tablecloth", located in the Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg, Russia. McGee makes the well-known genre of still life his own creating an exciting marvelous work incorporating the homely quilt - the powerful symbol of the African American road to safety from slavery - as his main focus. Quilts symbolize warmth, comfort, and as shown by the collection of quilts gathered by the artists in Gee's Bend the designs on the quilts hung outdoors at locations along the Underground Railroad showed fugitives the road north and to safety. "Squares and Things" was first shown at The Arwin Galleries, Inc., Detroit, Michigan, one of the stops along the Underground Railroad. This piece is signed by the artist, Charles McGee, and is an extraordinary example of his early work before he moved into Abstract Expressionism and his many sculptural works now located throughout Michigan. Several of these works are: "Noah's Ark: Genesis, 1984," on display at the Detroit Institute of Arts, his brilliant 2005 "Progression" a 45-foot wide aluminum sculpture at Beaumont Hospital, Royal Oak, Michigan, and his stunning 2016 "United We Stand" sculpture at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History . His genius can be seen in sculpture installments throughout the city of Detroit. . He was born into a family of sharecroppers. While helping his grandfather tend the land, "he observed firsthand the order and harmony that exists within nature." He had no formal schooling until moving to Detroit at age 10, where he found that "everything was on the move and it hasn’t slowed down yet." in 2017 he observed, "I learned something not being in school — because life is school . . .I learn something every time I move. Every time I go around a corner, something new is revealed to me.” McGee took advantage of the GI Bill to attend classes at the Society of Arts and Crafts, now the College for Creative Studies, Detroit, MI. Other College for Creative Studies (formerly Center for Creative Studies) faculty and graduates include Richard Jerzy, Harry Bertoia, Doug Chaing (currently director of Lucas Film), Stephen Dinehart (game maker, writer, designer connected with The David Lynch Foundation), Tyree Guyton (international artist), Herb Babcock, Jerome Feretti, Kevin Siembieda (writer, designer and publisher of role-playing games), Renee Radell, and Philip Pearlstein. After retiring from the Corps of Engineers, McGee spent 1968 studying art in Barcelona. Despite not knowing the language at the outset, he immersed himself in the culture and opened himself to a whole new range of experience that would play out in his artwork. "If you free yourself, you have this kind of opportunity to have those experiences, horizons, and new vistas." (per interview with Nick Sousanis author of a book on Charles McGee.) He returned to Detroit and curated "Seven Black Artists" at the Detroit Artists Market in 1969, which along with McGee himself, included Lester Johnson, Henri Umbaji King, Robert Murray, James Lee, Allie McGhee...

Oil on masonite painting by the Russian/American artist Nahum Tschacbasov. Signed middle right and dated 1955. It depicts a white stallion riding on a wooden raft in rough seas with...

A colorful view of Martha's Vineyard by Francis Chapin, from the 1930s. Francis Chapin, affectionately called the “Dean of Chicago Painters” by his colleagues, was one of the city’s most popular and celebrated painters in his day. Born at the dawn of the 20th Century in Bristolville, Ohio, Chapin graduated from Washington & Jefferson College near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania before enrolling at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1922. He would set down deep roots at the Art Institute of Chicago, exhibiting there over 31 times between 1926 and 1951. In 1927 Chapin won the prestigious Bryan Lathrop Fellowship from the Art Institute – a prize that funded the artist’s yearlong study trip to Europe. Upon his return to the United States, Chapin decided to remain in Chicago, noting the freedom Chicago artists have in developing independently of the pressure to conform to pre-existing molds (as was experienced by artists in New York, for example). Chapin became a popular instructor at the Art Institute, teaching there from 1929 to 1947 and at the Art Institute’s summer art school in Saugatuck, Michigan (now called Oxbow) between 1934 – 1938 (he was the director of the school from 1941-1945). A prolific painter, Chapin produced numerous works while traveling in Mexico, France, Spain, Saugatuck and Martha’s Vineyard, where he frequently spent summers and taught at the Old Sculpin Gallery there. Chapin was best recognized for his dynamic and vibrant images of Chicago during the 1930s and 40s. Chapin was a resident of the Old Town neighborhood where he lived and kept his studio on Menomonee Street for many years. Described as a “colorful figure, nearly 6 feet 6 inches tall, and thin, and usually wearing tweeds”, it is easy to imagine Chapin at work observing the busy street life of the city. In addition to his many exhibitions at the Art Institute of Chicago, Chapin’s work was shown during his lifetime at such institutions as the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia; the Corcoran Gallery, Washington, D.C.; the National Academy of Design, New York; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York and the Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, among others. Francis Chapin’s paintings are represented in the collections the Art Institute of Chicago; the Friedman Collection, Chicago; the Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown; the Denver Art Museum; the Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse; the Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach...

A view of Oak Bluffs, MA on Martha's Vineyard by Francis Chapin, from around 1950. Francis Chapin, affectionately called the “Dean of Chicago Painters” by his colleagues, was one of...

'Victor, Colorado', 1942 oil painting on masonite by Martyl Suzanne Schweig (1918-2013). This classic Colorado landscape was painted overlooking a ghost town with the Rocky Mountains visible across the background, completed in rich tones of green, gold, and brown. This painting was completed on a trip with fellow artist, Adolph Dehn...

A colorful view of Menemsha in Martha's Vineyard by Francis Chapin, from around 1950. Francis Chapin, affectionately called the “Dean of Chicago Painters” by his colleagues, was one...

A colorful view of Martha's Vineyard (Depicting Edgartown's main street) by Francis Chapin, from around 1950. Francis Chapin, affectionately called the “Dean of Chicago Painters” by...