Botanical Study

In this whimsical still life, Doris Lee uses her characteristic simplified forms and muted palette. Over her career, her highly accessible paintings drew a popular following. She won post-office mural commissions from the Works Progress Administration, created advertisements for Maxwell House Coffee, and designed prints for textiles. In the 1940s, she became a featured illustrator for Life magazine, which often sent her on assignment across the country and around the world. In this work, Lee takes a modern approach to still-life painting with a scientific study of a sprouting plant viewed under magnification.