Leon Polk Smith (1906ââ¬â1996) is an American painter. His geometrically oriented abstract paintings were influenced by Piet Mondrian and he is a founder of the Hard-edge school. His best-known paintings constitute maximally reduced forms, characterized by just two colors on a canvas meeting in a sharply delineated edge, often on an unframed canvas of unusual shape. His work is represented in many museums in the United States, Europe, and South America. Thanks to a generous bequest from the artist, the Brooklyn Museum has 27 of his paintings on permanent display.