REDUCTIVE AFFINITIES // LEON POLK SMITH AT THE OSU MUSEUM OF ART

by Benjamin Murphy

Many art institutions are invested in providing cultural experiences that engage the public in critical thinking and connect people to ways of thinking that stimulate a cultural dialogue. Focusing on the formal elements of art, the OSU Museum of Art presents the exhibit Leon Polk Smith: Affinities in Art & Design to reflect upon Oklahoma’s contribution to the hard-edge abstraction movement of the 1950s and 60s and its connection to 20th-century design. In 2015 and 2018, the museum welcomed 756 works on paper from the Leon Polk Smith Foundation and approximately 200 design objects from collector George R. Kravis II to its collection. Located in Stillwater’s Postal Plaza building, designed by R. W. Shaw and constructed in 1933, the gallery space is sizable and preserves many original architectural details alongside contemporary renovations. In early August I met up with Casey Ihde, who manages the museum’s marketing and communications, for a tour of the show. We discussed the exhibit’s structure, the interplay between visual art and industrial design, Smith’s commitment to art education, and the significance of these two collections to Oklahoma. Celebrating its 10th anniversary, with this level of programming the museum actively demonstrates its commitment to creativity, lifelong learning, and cultural engagement.

Leon Polk Smith was an early practitioner of hard-edge abstraction, a movement that rebelled against the often inherent chaos of Abstract Expressionism. His images are orderly, stripped-down formal explorations of simplified line, shape, color, and space. Reductive strategies like Smith’s for rendering form within an image became a central catalyst in the transition from modernism to the post-modern movements of minimalism and conceptual art. The influence of Smith’s hard-edge abstraction also reached beyond the art world, spilling into the design aesthetics powering corporate logos, production design, and architecture. Dominated by clean lines and geometric shapes, the work of this era was seen by many as contemporary and sophisticated. Admired for its simplicity, precision, and use of color, Smith’s work confirms Oklahoma’s connection to modern design during the mid-20th century.

Most interestingly, this exhibit lucidly demonstrates Smith’s approach to art making. Through the thoughtful organization of images, viewers are provided with a glimpse into the artist’s way of thinking. We come to understand how Smith’s shifts in viewpoint and scale result in new compositions and aesthetic outcomes. A perfect example of his process can be discerned through inspecting three works in which Smith explores the formal characteristics of the Dusty Miller plant—a hardy, relatively pest-resistant plant tolerant of heat, drought, and poor soils. Considered as an object, its leaves have wonderfully deep undulations accompanied by sweeping round edges. Smith’s work Dusty Miller studies the plant’s leafy form and distills it down to essential, repeating shapes. In his subsequent works Untitled (1955) and Untitled (1958), this strategy of minimizing continues and is emphasized further by magnifying sections of the plant. The act of magnification gives Smith the opportunity to play with new compositional possibilities, each dramatically different from the preceding image.

Untitled (1955) presents an asymmetrical vertical structure dominated by a rhythm established by three misshapen “lollipop” shapes. The image’s framework appears to derive from the act of magnification or “zooming-in” on the leafy shapes found in Dusty Miller. The pattern is non-uniform and the defining contour lines are speckled with angular articulations. Untitled (1958) continues this magnification tactic, focusing on a single node in the leaf’s structure.

At this point the subject or plant has become completely abstracted. The contour lines are crisp and smooth, leaning into a pop aesthetic. A viewer’s sense of space becomes disoriented as the figure-ground relationship becomes confused, existing in a state of fluctuation between positive and negative space. As abstraction takes hold, the plant form now more closely resembles the interlocking tabs of puzzle pieces.

During this same time period in the 1950s, Smith was inspired by a Spaulding athletic equipment catalogue that led him to become fascinated with the form of the sphere. Basketballs and balls used in other sports, Smith reported, “showed me how to use the curvilinear form with an inner circle.” The OSU Museum of Art dedicates a small but impactful section of the exhibition to this subject, demonstrating the connection of Spaulding sports balls to Smith’s work. On display is a Spaulding catalogue, basketball, can of tennis balls, and two baseballs. Smith’s response to these materials leads to an exploration of curvilinear relationships that utilizes overlapping circles to generate new shapes and formal relationships. Untitled (black and white, 1956) combines three circles to create a single form within a larger circle. Through the 1960s Smith persists in his investigation of the sphere, and his compositions become larger and more complex. He begins to use multiple shapes displayed in dynamic arrays on curvilinear canvases that engage the space around them in an interplay of positive and negative relationships. Color emerges as an active character in these works, providing additional optic complexities and furthering the connection between Smith and the Pop Art movement.

The Kravis Collection complements the Smith exhibition wonderfully by providing us with an understanding of the relationship between the artist’s work and the greater design trends of the day. Placed throughout the gallery, modern design objects such as lamps, chairs, tables, radios, and ceramics connect visually with Smith’s works, which acquire their complexity through interactions of basic geometric forms. Confronted by his artwork and these objects in dialogue with one another, we glean a robust understanding of the ways-of-seeing that form the basis of modernist aesthetics during the mid-20th century. We are left with a warmly dynamic connection to an aesthetic based in hard lines, fundamental geometry, flat surfaces, and monochromatic areas of color.

BENJAMIN MURPHY is a Canadian-born artist who sees the language of art as an expanding one and utilizes the mediums of painting, drawing, printmaking, and digital fabrication. His work examines our evolving understanding of the physical world, technology, and the anthropogenic impacts of climate change. Murphy is the Assistant Professor of Studio Art at OSU and holds an MFA in Painting from the University of Oklahoma. You can learn more about his work at benjaminmurphy.art.