Leon Polk Smith: Back to Oklahoma BY J O R DA N H AY S
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ore than 700 works by artistic pioneer Leon Polk Smith, an Ada, Oklahoma native, now have a permanent home in the OSU Museum of Art collection. Smith pioneered a style of geometric abstraction that laid the foundation for an art form known as Minimalism in the 1960s. Best known for his paintings, he created more than 2,000 unique works on paper throughout his career. The gift, from the Leon Polk Smith Foundation in New York City, marks the largest number of works ever given to the museum by a single donor and enhances its holding of work by significant artists with Oklahoma roots, a priority of the museum. “We are particularly happy to send these works permanently to Smith’s native state and aid this new museum in building its collection of Oklahoma artists with a gift of such magnitude,” says Patterson Sims, president of the board of the Leon Polk Smith Foundation. Born in 1906, Smith was educated in the new state of Oklahoma, which had a formative influence on his character and artistic development through his early 30s. He discovered art as a college student at East Central University in Ada, literally stumbling into an art studio that had its door open. Smith moved to New York City in 1945, where he remained for the rest of his life. The gift to the museum
spans Smith’s decades-long career, showcasing his drive to explore the full variety of formal abstraction. A selection of highlights from the collection including drawings and paintings will be introduced to the public in Leon Polk Smith: Back to Oklahoma, an exhibition scheduled to run May 31 through September 3 at the OSU Museum of Art. His work will also be featured on an upcoming OETA segment. “The board is pleased to share these art studies, true documents of Smith’s enormous fount of creativity and inventive capacity to renew his vision continually over a period of some 60 years,” says Robert T. Buck, Leon Polk Smith Foundation board chairman and former director of the Brooklyn Museum. As a permanent collection, Smith’s work will serve as an invaluable resource for the state of Oklahoma. It will provide opportunities for scholarly research, further exhibition development, and collaboration with other well-established museums in the state such as East Central University (where Smith studied), the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art in Norman, and the Philbrook Museum of Art in Tulsa. A special reception is scheduled from 5 to 7 p.m. Tuesday, August 16, at the OSU Museum of Art. All exhibitions and programs are free and open to the public. For more information, visit museum. okstate.edu.
Leon Polk Smith (1906 – 1996), Untitled, 1968, paint on paper, 16 1/4 x 17 inches. Gift of Leon Polk Smith Foundation, New York, New York.
James W. Bruce Jr., Chinese Pot and Shallots, 2011, oil on linen, 14 x 18 inches.
Impressionism Exhibition
This summer, the OSU Museum of Art will present Vision of Impressionism: Paintings from the Oklahoma Society of Impressionists from June 20 through August 6. Vision of Impressionism showcases highlights of recent works from artists in the Oklahoma Society of Impressionists. The OSI began in 1987 when a group of Oklahoma artists met in Taos, New Mexico, at a plein aire workshop. Plein aire, a French term meaning “open air,” is used in this context to describe the act of painting outdoors. Many well-known French Impressionist painters, including Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro and Pierre-Auguste Renoir were strong advocates of plein aire painting, and the technique remains strongly connected to the Impressionist style. The OSI was formed to represent and support Oklahoma artists painting in the Impressionist style, to raise public appreciation for plein aire, and to promote excellence in representational art. OSI, whose membership is limited to artists who have Oklahoma roots and/or artists who currently live in Oklahoma, has exhibited work across the state of Oklahoma as well as in Texas, Colorado, Missouri and Arkansas. In 1993, OSI artists created paintings for the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City and the Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The OSU Museum of Art will host an opening reception for the exhibition from 5 to 7 p.m. Thursday, June 30. A lecture featuring exhibition curators James W. Bruce Jr. and Linda Howell will begin at 6 p.m.
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