Untitled 1946

This untitled painting by Leon Polk Smith features these amazing interlocking shapes in red, black, and orange, laid down on a grey background. I can just imagine Smith at work, maybe standing back, squinting, and then moving forward again, brush in hand, deciding where to place each block of color. It’s like he’s building something, right? Like these shapes are pieces of a puzzle that fit together in unexpected ways. And I'm curious to know what he was thinking about when he made it? Was he thinking about Mondrian, or maybe even the patterns of Native American art? There’s a real joy in how these shapes interact, how the hard edges push against each other, creating this lively rhythm. It makes you realize that art is a conversation, a back-and-forth between artists across time and space. It's like they're all riffing off each other, inspiring new ways of seeing and feeling. And really, it's about the pleasure of uncertainty, that space where things can be more than one thing at once.