Doris Lee
| Doris Emrick Lee | |
|---|---|
| Born |
February 1, 1905 Aledo, Illinois |
| Died | June 16, 1983 (aged 78) |
| Nationality | American |
| Field | Painting, Printmaking |
Doris Emrick Lee (February 1, 1905 – June 16, 1983) was an American painter known for her figurative painting and printmaking. She won the Logan Medal of the Arts from the Chicago Art Institute in 1935.
She was born in Aledo, Illinois and attended Ferry Hall School, a preparatory school for girls in Lake Forest, Illinois, from 1920-22. She graduated from Rockford College in 1927 and studied with the American Impressionist Ernest Lawson at the Kansas City Art Institute in 1929. And in 1930 she attended the California School of Fine Arts in San Francisco.
Her career took off in 1935 when her painting “Thanksgiving Dinner” won the Logan Prize in the annual show at the Art Institute of Chicago. As a Works Progress Administration artist during the 1930s, she was commissioned to create several murals by the United States Treasury Department in Washington, DC. In 1937, Lee painted two murals in the Main Post Office in Washington, DC, and another in the Summerville, Georgia Post Office.[1] That same year the Metropolitan Museum of Art acquired her 1936 painting Catastrophe for its permanent collection.[2] During the 1930s and 1940s she created a number of lithographs for the Associated American Artists. During the late 1940s and early 1950s, Lee undertook several commissions for Life magazine, including articles and illustrations on travel to such places as North Africa, Mexico, and Cuba.[3]
She taught at Michigan State University and Colorado Springs Fine Art Center, and she also worked as a magazine and book illustrator.[4] She was married to photographer Russell Lee then she married the artist and teacher Arnold Blanch in 1939, and for many years they lived and worked in Woodstock, NY. For a while she maintained a studio in New York City.[2]
In Popular Culture
Lee's 1935 painting "Noon" is briefly described in Vladimir Nabokov's classic 1955 novel Lolita: "... she [Lolita] wanted to know if the guy noon-napping on Doris Lee’s hay was the father of the pseudo-voluptuous hoyden in the foreground.”[5]
References
- ↑ Smith, Roberta (April 7, 2008). "Offering a Painter for History’s Reconsideration". New York Times. Retrieved 7 February 2014.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Lowery Stokes Sims, Doris Emrick Lee 1904-1983 #16, The Landscape in Twentieth-Century American Art, Selections from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rizzoli, NY 1991, p.57, 56.
- ↑ "Guide to the Doris Lee Papers". Special Collections, Library and Research Center. National Museum of Women in the Arts. August 2006. Retrieved 7 February 2014.
- ↑ "Doris Lee Biography". National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Retrieved 7 February 2014.
- ↑ Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita, Part 2, Chapter 12 (last paragraph), originally published in France by the Olympia Press, 1955, and in the United States by the Putnam Publishing Group, 1958.
External links
- Lee, Doris - Biography, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
- Oral history interview with Doris Emrick Lee, 1964 Nov. 4, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution
- Offering a Painter for History’s Reconsideration by Roberta Smith for the New York Times
|