
East Tech Scarab. Cleveland, Ohio. Thursday, May 3, 1934.
Hughie Lee-Smith won a Scholastic Award in 1934. The talented artist would live through the Great Depression, World War II and the civil rights movement. He taught art, was employed by the WPA, and won a top prize for a painting from the Detroit Institute of Arts. After his move to New York City in 1958, Hughie taught at the Art Students League for 15 years. He was also the second African-American to become an associate member of the National Academy of Design. Retrospectives of his work have been exhibited at the Studio Museum in Harlem and the New Jersey State Museum, and his art can be found in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, and Philadelphia Museum of Art collections, among others.
Hughie passed away in 1999, but his art and passion live on. In the letter below, he dispenses advice to young artists and shares what winning the Scholastic Award meant to him.
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