Provenance

Robert Rogers, Halifax

Leon Polk Smith (1906–1996) occupies a singular place in American geometric abstraction. Born in rural Oklahoma, Polk Smith moved to New York in 1936 after graduating from East Central University and studying at Columbia University. Renowned for his commitment to simplified forms, brilliant colour, and intense minimal compositions, Smith exhibited widely from his first solo show in 1941. His work has been the subject of major retrospectives and is held in leading museum collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Guggenheim, and the Whitney Museum of American Art.