Artist's Life # 3
Lithograph, 1939, edition unknown. 7 1/2 x 10 3/4 in. Initialed on the stone, lower left, and signed and titled in pencil below the image. This is a fine impression with full margins. The condition is very good, overall. (There's the trace of a soft crease in the upper right and upper left corner margins and also one just touching the image in the lower right corner.) This important early work is one of three lithographic images done for his autobiographic "artist's life" series. Lee-Smith was one of the preeminent African-American WPA printmakers working in Cleveland. The series is discussed in Alone in A Crowd, Prints of the 1930s-40s by African-American Artists from the Collection of Reba and Dave Williams, page 33.
SOLD