Equilibrium of Form and Space – Prints and Collages by Leon Polk Smith

I’m sure there’s many of you who have received books as gifts over the last month. I’ve been slowly collecting a wide range of art and design books ever since I started the website, and to be quite honest, it’s getting a bit out of hand now. So for 2016 I made a small resolution to read at least a couple of chapters a night so that I could finally pass on some books to make room in my office.

One of the books had a small feature on American artist Leon Polk Smith, so I decided to have a quick browse of his foundation page to see if anything would inspire me. I was especially interested in his collage and print work. I’m not much of a painter myself but I’ve experimented with collages last year and had some interesting results. So this work here will hopefully kickstart some new work in me for the year ahead.

Leon Polk Smith took a particular interest in the De Stijl movement, especially inspired by Piet Mondrian, and ended up producing a fantastic array of geometric artworks. Instead of the horizontal and vertical lines that Mondrian applied to painting, Leon often included the diagonal as well and focused on producing logical art that had order. I’m attracted to the simplicity, he even said in some of the interview segments on the website that he had to constantly simplify to transpose his ideas on to canvas. I recommend reading those interviews here, otherwise I’ve placed a small selection of prints and collages below.

leonpolksmithfoundation.org

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