Artist:
Doris Lee
(American, 1905 - 1983)
Botanical Study
Medium: Oil on canvas board
Date: 1945-1950
Dimensions:
14 × 18 in. (35.6 × 45.7 cm)
Accession number: 2021.1
Copyright: © The Estate of Doris Lee, courtesy of D. Wigmore Fine Art, Inc.
Label Copy:
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.
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.
Curatorial RemarksDoris Lee was a native of Illinois, where she attended prep school at Ferry Hall before entering Rockford College. She studied at the Kansas City Art Institute with Ernest Lawson and attended the California School of Fine Arts in San Francisco. She married Russell Lee, who would go on to become a well-known photographer for the Farm Securities Administration. Together they went on an extended trip to Europe where Doris Lee studied with Andre Lhote, a noted Cubist painter.
Working in a regionalist style, Lee won the 1935 Logan Prize at the Art Institute of Chicago for her painting Thanksgiving. She went on to work as a muralist with the Works Progress Administration, notably completing a major work on the history of mail delivery in rural America for the Main Post Office in Washington DC in 1937. The Metropolitan Museum of Art acquired her painting Catastrophe in 1937. She married her second husband, Arnold Blanch, in 1939 and the two settled in Woodstock, New York, long the site of an American art colony, where a company of modernist artists was then working including George Ault, Gaston Lachaise, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Andrew Dasburg, Ernest Fiene, and Konrad Cramer.
Beginning in the 1930s and continuing into the 1960s, Lee transformed many of her works into lithographs for sale through Associated American Artists. Her works were also reproduced as ceramics and textile designs. She also licensed her work for advertising use for products such as Maxwell House Coffee. In the 1940s, she became a featured illustrator for Life magazine, which often sent her on assignment across the country and around the world. Over her career she taught at Michigan State University and Colorado Springs Fine Art Center, as well as co-authoring Painting for Enjoyment with her husband in 1947.
While she favored simplified forms throughout her life, her highly accessible paintings and illustrations became more abstract in her later career. By the 1960s she concentrated more on the harmony of shapes and colors. In 1968 she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and thereafter only worked on personal paintings in at her home in Clearwater, Florida, until her death in 1983.
Two similar works by Lee featuring a magnifying glass are known, one enlarges a sunflower seeds and the other, the leaves of a plant. Magnifying Glass with Sunflower Seeds and Plants and Magnifying Glass (Leaves). All three of these works appeared in an Associated American Artists exhibition in October 1950.
Working in a regionalist style, Lee won the 1935 Logan Prize at the Art Institute of Chicago for her painting Thanksgiving. She went on to work as a muralist with the Works Progress Administration, notably completing a major work on the history of mail delivery in rural America for the Main Post Office in Washington DC in 1937. The Metropolitan Museum of Art acquired her painting Catastrophe in 1937. She married her second husband, Arnold Blanch, in 1939 and the two settled in Woodstock, New York, long the site of an American art colony, where a company of modernist artists was then working including George Ault, Gaston Lachaise, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Andrew Dasburg, Ernest Fiene, and Konrad Cramer.
Beginning in the 1930s and continuing into the 1960s, Lee transformed many of her works into lithographs for sale through Associated American Artists. Her works were also reproduced as ceramics and textile designs. She also licensed her work for advertising use for products such as Maxwell House Coffee. In the 1940s, she became a featured illustrator for Life magazine, which often sent her on assignment across the country and around the world. Over her career she taught at Michigan State University and Colorado Springs Fine Art Center, as well as co-authoring Painting for Enjoyment with her husband in 1947.
While she favored simplified forms throughout her life, her highly accessible paintings and illustrations became more abstract in her later career. By the 1960s she concentrated more on the harmony of shapes and colors. In 1968 she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and thereafter only worked on personal paintings in at her home in Clearwater, Florida, until her death in 1983.
Two similar works by Lee featuring a magnifying glass are known, one enlarges a sunflower seeds and the other, the leaves of a plant. Magnifying Glass with Sunflower Seeds and Plants and Magnifying Glass (Leaves). All three of these works appeared in an Associated American Artists exhibition in October 1950.