Hughie Lee Smith

Hughie LeeSmith was an American artist and teacher whose signature works were slightly surreal in mood, often featuring distant figures seen under vast skies in desolate urban settings.

LeeSmith was born in Eustis, Florida to parents Luther and Alice Williams Smith in art school he altered his last name to sound more distinguished. As a child LeeSmith moved to Atlanta to live with his grandmother, where the carnivals he attended would later provide imagery for his art. At agehe moved to Cleveland, and attended classes at the Cleveland Museum of Art, and later the Cleveland Institute of Art and the John Huntington Polytechnic Institute, the Art School of the Detroit Society of Arts amp Crafts , and received a Bachelor of Arts from Wayne State University in Detroit. He began to teach art, and performed with an interracial dance company. His early work reflected social concerns inspired by the Great Depression of the 1930s and the work of Works Progress Administration artists of the period. LeeSmith was employed by the WPA in Ohio, and while in the Navy painted a mural entitled History of the Negro in the U.S. Navy.

Source: Wikipedia