The Stranger

Hughie Lee-Smith, The Stranger, ca. 1957-1958, oil on canvas, 26 ¹⁄₄ x 36 ¹⁄₈ in. (66.7 x 91.8 cm.), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase, 1994.15

Artwork Details

Title: The Stranger
Artist: Hughie Lee-Smith
Date: ca. 1957-1958
Location: Not on view
Dimensions: 26 ¹⁄₄ x 36 ¹⁄₈ in. (66.7 x 91.8 cm.)
Credit Line: Museum purchase
Mediums: oil
Mediums Description: oil on canvas
Classifications: Painting
Subjects: Architecture Exterior — domestic — house
Figure male — full length
Landscape
Object Number: 1994.15
Linked Open Data: https://edan.si.edu/saam/id/object/1994.15

Artwork Description

Like many other artists of the Cold War era, Hughie Lee-Smith explored themes of exclusion and alienation in his paintings. He believed that the African American experience in particular was one of rejection and isolation and his feelings of racial disparity frequently influenced his work. In The Stranger, a lone figure stands in the foreground engulfed by a brown and green hillside. The man is frozen mid-gesture, looking over his shoulder at a wide gulf separating him from the cluster of homes behind him. The man's race is ambiguous and features blurred, a choice Lee-Smith made in order to symbolize "everyman." The geography, too, is nonspecific, created by the artist from a compilation of sketches and photographic studies of midwestern landscapes. Lee-Smith changed the name of this painting from Town Beyond Slope to The Stranger in 1994 after being struck by the man's separation from the town.