Leon Polk Smith

From today's perspective, the dynamic, geometric abstractions of Leon Polk Smith (1906–96) stand out as a missing link in art history. His work connects the European avant-garde with American Abstract Expressionism via his transformations of Mondrian’s legacy. Smith's pioneering role in the hard-edge style and his shaped canvases represent key developments in painting: departing from the rectangular canvas allowed Smith to conceive new interrelations between his two-color compositions and their spatial context. His Constellations series, created between 1967 and 1975, marks the high point of his career, and won him artistic acclaim beyond the US.
Alongside early compositions from the 1940s and multipart shaped canvases, Leon Polk Smith: Going Beyond Space features collages, prints, reliefs and painted objects and proposes a new reception of Smith’s decades-spanning oeuvre.

While recognized as a forerunner of American hard-edge painting, whose innovative abstractions of the 1950s were highly influential, Leon Polk Smith (1906–96) often went unappreciated during his lifetime. This publication chronicles the 2021 exhibition at Lisson Gallery, featuring works spanning nearly 50 years of his career, from his struggle with the legacy of Mondrian to his impact on the language of abstraction and his acknowledgment, later in life, of the influence on his art of the rural prairies of Oklahoma, where he grew up, and the importance of his Cherokee heritage.
This fully illustrated catalog features new scholarship by curator and editor Lynn Zelevanksy and art historian Elizabeth Buhe, and a reproduction of a 1968 essay by the legendary critic Lawrence Alloway. Representing three generations, their diverse perspectives provide a rich and complex discussion og the artist’s legacy, and unprecedented insight into his career.

This volume highlights the work of American artist Leon Polk Smith (1906–96), one of the founders of the hard-edge style of minimalist art, who rose to prominence in the late 1950s and early 1960s with his distinctive shaped canvas series. While his minimalist peers were shifting away from modernism, Smith was wholeheartedly advancing the formal and rational elements of the modernist tradition, in particular the legacy of Mondrian. Published for a 2017 exhibition at Lisson Gallery, this book focuses on paintings and drawings from the artist’s seminal Constellation series from the late 1960s and early 1970s. The publication features an essay by the poet and writer John Yau, alongside color reproductions of each of the works included in the exhibition. An illustrated chronology details the artist’s life and work, including previously unpublished archival material.