Image: Museum of Wisconsin Art, West Bend
The Museum of Wisconsin Art in West Bend will present 'Leslie Smith III: Leave Your Baggage at the Door' from August 1 to October 11, 2026, bringing together 22 paintings made between 2010 and 2024. The exhibition is framed by Smith’s invitation to viewers to set aside “biases and expectations” and enter with “open eyes and an open mind,” according to the museum’s exhibition page.
The show marks what MOWA describes as a significant shift in Smith’s artistic approach after his move from New York City to Wisconsin. Seen as a focused retrospective, it traces 15 years of studio practice through works ranging in scale from the intimate to the monumental. The museum says the paintings are being shown together for the first time in this context, offering a compressed view of the artist’s evolution across abstraction, shape, color and texture.
Smith’s progression can be read in the exhibition’s formal structure as well as in its chronology. MOWA describes early abstract paintings alongside shaped works that depart from the traditional four-cornered canvas, then builds toward recent multi-canvas mixed-media constructions. Those later works, the museum says, fracture and expand the picture plane while pushing at the physical boundaries of painting. The installation is presented as a survey of an approach that has become increasingly abstract over time.
The museum’s text also emphasizes the relationship between Smith’s personal narrative and the emotional register of the work. Through abstraction, MOWA says, Smith seeks to communicate his own story while eliciting a universal emotional response. His paintings are described as sensory and conceptual experiences, pairing vivid compositions with titles intended to invite reflection and interpretation. The exhibition statement returns to the idea of close looking as a “quiet portal” to emotion, empathy and reflection.
MOWA identifies Smith as a Madison-based artist who grew up in metropolitan Washington, DC. The exhibition page notes that he earned a BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore and an MFA from Yale University. It also says he is professor of drawing and painting and Art Department Chair at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, situating the presentation within his current Wisconsin practice as well as the career arc the show surveys.
The exhibition runs at MOWA West Bend, and the museum lists an opening party on August 8. A separate artist talk is also scheduled for that day. Additional upcoming activities connected to the exhibition include curator tours on August 13 and September 19, as well as a series of public programs later in the run, including Mini Makers sessions, Art+Wellness events and a workshop titled 'Layering Narratives: Abstract Figural Painting'.
Support for the exhibition is listed as having been generously provided by The Mona Boulware Webb Fund.
