Portrait of Hughie Lee-Smith
Artist
J. Edward Bailey III
(American, 1923-1982)
Datec. 1975
MediumPrint on Kodak Polycontrast J double weight paper
DimensionsFrame Size: 22 × 19 3/4 in. (55.9 × 50.2 cm)
Image Size: 13 1/4 × 11 in. (33.7 × 27.9 cm)
ClassificationsPhotograph
Object numberUAC6294
DescriptionAmerican painter Hughie Lee-Smith is the subject of J. Edward Bailey's photograph, just one of a series of portraits highlighting 200 prominent African Americans of the 1970s found in his 1975 book, Living Legends in Black. Though native to Florida, Lee-Smith attended the Cleveland Institute of Art and the Art School of the Detroit Society of Arts & Crafts (now College for Creative Studies) before settling at Wayne State University where he would receive his BFA and continue on as a professor of art. Bailey's photo captures the artist's spirit as well as the environment and subject matter that inspired his paintings. Lee-Smith would often translate scenes of the everyday into surrealistic depictions, inscribing his vision into Detroit's landscape.J. Edward Bailey III was born in Detroit in 1923, earning a degree from Wayne State University where he would continue to teach photojournalism. A nationally renowned photographer, and one of very few professional African American photographers of the time, Bailey's work has appeared in major publications such as Time, Life, and Fortune. He was commissioned in 1968 by the Detroit Institute of Arts to create a 200-print exhibition and photo essay entitled, The City Within, which centered around a study of Detroit's impoverished neighborhoods. Bailey's legacy lives on through his founding of the Wayne State University photojournalism program.
Text by Claire Cirocco
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