Leon Polk Smith

Known for his De Stijl-inspired work in painting and printmaking, Leon Polk Smith also distinguished himself as a passionate educator. Born in Chickasha, Oklahoma in 1906, he earned his BA from the East Central State Normal School (now East Central University) in Ada, OK in 1935, and his MA from Teachers College at Columbia University in 1938. Polk Smith subsequently taught art at Georgia Teachers College in Collegeboro, GA; the Delaware school system; Rollins College in Winter Park, FL; and Mills College of Education in New York.

Polk Smith’s first solo show was held at the Uptown Gallery in New York in 1941, and his first solo museum exhibition was at the Telfair Academy of Arts and Sciences in Savannah, GA in 1942. Polk Smith was also the recipient of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Scholarship in 1944 and was a Tamarind Lithography Workshop Fellow in 1968. He died in 1996.

During his lifetime, Polk Smith exhibited his works in solo shows at the Brooklyn Museum, NY; the Washburn Gallery, NY; Galerie Hoffmann in Friedburg, Germany; and the San Francisco Museum of Art, CA, among others. Posthumously, his works have been the subject of solo exhibitions at the Palm Springs Art Museum, Louis Stern Fine Arts, and the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth, TX.

Leon Polk Smith’s works are included in numerous major public collections around the United States, including the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC; the Museum of Fine Arts Boston; the Brooklyn Museum in Brooklyn, NY; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; and the Detroit Institute of Arts, among other institutions.