Hughie Lee Smith (b 1915 d. 2000)

Hughie Lee Smith attended the Cleveland School of Art, Saturday classes at the Cleveland Museum of Art, and said that his most influential teachers were Henry Keller and Carl Gaertner who showed him the importance of values, which influenced him and was always reflected in his work. 50 years after he started painting, and after winning many recognitions, there was a major retrospective of his work with reviews in major publications in 1988. But he had had more than 40 solo exhibitions from 1945-the 90s. He is thought to be the most highly acclaimed African American artist to have started his career in Cleveland . Well taken. His work was “modern” in WPA and continued to grow as he developed an abstract style using multiple planes and placing figures in juxtaposition with structures .