Doris Lee
Born 1905, Aledo, Illinois
Died 1983, Clearwater, Florida
1927 BA Rockford College, Rockford, Illinois
1929 Kansas City Art Institute
1930 California School of Fine Art, San Francisco
Selected museum exhibitions: Westmoreland Museum of American Art, Greensburg, Pennsylvania (2020); National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C. (2014); Woodstock Artists Association, New York (1984); New York World’s Fair (1939)
Selected honors: Carnegie Prize (1944); Logan Purchase Prize, Art Institute of Chicago (1935)
Selected public collections: Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo; Art Institute of Chicago; Cleveland Museum of Art; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Metropolitan Museum of Art; National Museum of Women in the Arts; Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.; Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.; Whitney Museum of American Art
After her studies in the Midwest, France, and California, painter and illustrator Doris Lee settled in New York City and Woodstock, New York. She achieved fame in the 1930s, claiming the prestigious Logan Purchase Prize and winning commissions for public murals that she painted in a deliberately folksy style. An early collector of American folk art and Pre-Columbian artifacts, Lee simplified her style in subsequent decades with increased focus on abstract form. Inspired by the growth of an avocado plant, her Vine series of the mid-1950s offers a charming and sophisticated exploration of repeated forms and unmodulated colors.