“The Bridge,” a Portal to my Childhood

I enter into the painting, “The Bridge” through my memories as a young girl running through a river of tall grass; the tips of the sun-drenched blades tickle my legs. I see myself, bubbling with childhood glee, skip to the bridge and walk along it like a tightrope, taking care to avoid the cracks splitting like capillaries along its stone surface. Featured at New Britain Museum of American Art exhibition, “For America: Paintings from the National Gallery of Design, I found myself enraptured into an unfamiliar yet familiar space.

The painting by American artist Hughie Lee-Smith, illuminates his close observations of nature. “The Bridge” served as Lee-Smith’s diploma presentation in 1968 at the National Academy of the Design where he was elected as the second African-American artist to achieve the prestigious membership. He submitted two paintings, a self-portrait and this glorious landscape with its swaying tall grasses in the foreground, the fragment of solidly but aging bridge, “perhaps a reminder of man’s presence.” Many of his landscape paintings articulate his personal emotions about the disparity between individuals. Lee-Smith said, “In my case, aloneness, I think has stemmed from the fact that I’m black. Unconsciously it has a lot to do with a sense of alienation.” What strikes me, through the prism of my life experience is the ways “The Bridge” is so picturesque and welcoming. In my looking experience. “The Bridge,” is a portal to my carefree childhood; small moments of engagement, getting lost in my imagination.