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 The Logan Medal of the Arts was an arts prize initiated in 1907 and associated with the Art Institute of Chicago, the Frank G Logan family and the Society for Sanity in Art. From 1917 through 1940, 270 awards were given for contributions to Amer ...

from the

Chicago Art Institute The Art Institute of Chicago, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the United States. The museum is based in the Art Institute of Chicago Building in Chicago's Grant Park. Its collection, stewarded by 11 curatoria ...

in 1935. She is known as one of the most successful female artists of the

Depression era The Great Depression was a severe global economic downturn from 1929 to 1939. The period was characterized by high rates of unemployment and poverty, drastic reductions in industrial production and international trade, and widespread bank and ...

in the United States.

Biography and career

Lee was born in

Aledo, Illinois Aledo is a city and the county seat of Mercer County, Illinois, United States. The population was 3,633 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. History Aledo was established in the 1850s when the railroad was extended to that point. It ...

and attended

Ferry Hall School The Ferry Hall School was a girls' preparatory school founded in 1869 in Lake Forest, Illinois, United States. In 1974, Ferry Hall merged into Lake Forest Academy. History Originally named The Young Ladies' Seminary at Ferry Hall, the school ...

, a preparatory school for girls in

Lake Forest, Illinois Lake Forest is a city located in Lake County, Illinois, United States. Per the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population was 19,367. The city is along the shore of Lake Michigan, and is a part of the Chicago metropolitan area and t ...

, from 1920 to 1922. She graduated from

Rockford College Rockford or Rockfords may refer to: Places United States * Rockford, Alabama, a town * Rockford, Idaho, a census-designated place * Rockford, Illinois, a city, the largest municipality of this name * Rockford metropolitan area, Illinois, a Unite ...

in 1927 and studied with the

American Impressionist American Impressionism was a style of painting related to European Impressionism and practiced by American artists in the United States from the mid-nineteenth century through the beginning of the twentieth. The style is characterized by loose ...

and Ashcan School painter

Ernest Lawson Ernest Lawson (March 22, 1873 – December 18, 1939) was a Canadian-American painter and exhibited his work at the Canadian Art Club and as a member of the American group The Eight (Ashcan School), The Eight, artists who formed a loose asso ...

at the

Kansas City Art Institute The Kansas City Art Institute (KCAI) is a private art school in Kansas City, Missouri. The college was founded in 1885 and is an accredited by the National Association of Schools of Art and Design and Higher Learning Commission. The institute ...

in 1929. At the institute, she also met painter,

Arnold Blanch Arnold Blanch (June 4, 1896 – October 3, 1968), was born and raised in Mantorville, Minnesota. He was an American modernist painter, etcher, illustrator, lithographer, muralist, printmaker and art teacher. Life His modernist paintings are a ...

whom she later married after her 1939 divorce from Russell Lee. Lee also attended the

California School of Fine Arts San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) was a private college of contemporary art in San Francisco, California. Founded in 1871, SFAI was one of the oldest art schools in the United States and the oldest west of the Mississippi River. Approximately ...

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

in 1930. After her schooling, Lee moved to

Woodstock, New York Woodstock is a Administrative divisions of New York#Town, town in Ulster County, New York, United States, in the northern part of the county, northwest of Kingston, New York, Kingston. It lies within the borders of the Catskill Park. The popula ...

and established herself as an artist in that community and settled there for the remainder of her artistic career. General store and post office 24943v

During the 1930s, she was commissioned to create several murals by the

United States Treasury Department The Department of the Treasury (USDT) is the national treasury and finance department of the federal government of the United States. It is one of 15 current U.S. government departments. The department oversees the Bureau of Engraving and ...

Washington, DC Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and Federal district of the United States, federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from ...

. In 1937, Lee painted two murals in the Main Post Office in Washington, DC, and another in the

Summerville, Georgia Summerville is a city and the county seat of Chattooga County, Georgia, United States. The population was 4,435 at the 2020 census. History Summerville was founded in 1838 as the seat of the newly formed Chattooga County. It was incorporated a ...

Post Office A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letter (message), letters and parcel (package), parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post o ...

. That same year the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an Encyclopedic museum, encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the List of largest museums, third-largest museum in the world and the List of larg ...

acquired her 1936 painting ''Catastrophe'' for its permanent collection.

Lowery Stokes Sims Lowery Stokes Sims (born 1949) is an American art historian and curator of modern and contemporary art. She is known for her expertise in the work of African, African American, Latinx, Native and Asian American artists such as Wifredo Lam, Fritz ...

, ''Doris Emrick Lee 1904-1983'' #16, ''The Landscape in Twentieth-Century American Art'', Selections from the

, Rizzoli, NY 1991, p.57, 56. Her 1935 painting "Noon", was referenced in Vladimir Nabokov's book ''

Lolita ''Lolita'' is a 1955 novel written by Russian-American novelist Vladimir Nabokov. The protagonist and narrator is a French literature professor who moves to New England and writes under the pseudonym Humbert Humbert. He details his obsession ...

''. During the 1930s and 1940s she created a number of lithographs for the

Associated American Artists Associated American Artists (AAA) was an art gallery in New York City that was established in 1934 and ceased operation in 2000. The gallery marketed art to the middle and upper-middle classes, first in the form of affordable prints and later in ...

. During the late 1940s and early 1950s, Lee undertook several commissions for ''

Life Life, also known as biota, refers to matter that has biological processes, such as Cell signaling, signaling and self-sustaining processes. It is defined descriptively by the capacity for homeostasis, Structure#Biological, organisation, met ...

'' magazine, including articles and illustrations on travel to such places as North Africa, Mexico, and Cuba. During this time, her work became much more stylized with more concern to color and pure forms. She taught at

Michigan State University Michigan State University (Michigan State or MSU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in East Lansing, Michigan, United States. It was founded in 1855 as the Agricultural College of the State o ...

and was invited to attend

Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center The Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center at Colorado College (FAC) is an arts center located just north of downtown Colorado Springs, Colorado. Located on the same city block are the American Numismatic Association and part of the campus of Colorado ...

as a guest artist. During the 1960s, Lee retired from painting and later died in Clearwater, Florida, in 1983. In addition to the Art Institute of Chicago, the

Rhode Island School of Design The Rhode Island School of Design (RISD , pronounced "Riz-D") is a private art and design school in Providence, Rhode Island. The school was founded as a coeducational institution in 1877 by Helen Adelia Rowe Metcalf, who sought to increase th ...

, and The

, Lee's work can be found in many public collections, including the

Whitney Museum of American Art The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is a Modern art, modern and Contemporary art, contemporary American art museum located in the Meatpacking District, Manhattan, Meatpacking District and West Village neighbor ...

, Phillips Collection, Washington, DC, Cleveland Museum of Art, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts,

National Museum of Women in the Arts The National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA), located in Washington, D.C., is "the first museum in the world solely dedicated" to championing women through the arts. NMWA was incorporated in 1981 by Wallace and Wilhelmina Holladay. Since openi ...

, and the

Greenville County Museum of Art The Greenville County Museum of Art (GCMA) is an art museum located in Greenville, South Carolina. Its collections focus mainly on American art, and its holdings include works by Andrew Wyeth, Jasper Johns (raised in South Carolina), William Hen ...

, Greenville, South Carolina. A traveling retrospective entitled "Simple Pleasures: The Art of Doris Lee", is planned for 2021-2023, and a related exhibit is at the Wigmore Fine Art Gallery in Manhattan in January 2022.

''Thanksgiving''

In 1935, Doris Lee's bustling scene of women preparing a

Thanksgiving Thanksgiving is a national holiday celebrated on various dates in October and November in the United States, Canada, Saint Lucia, Liberia, and unofficially in countries like Brazil and Germany. It is also observed in the Australian territory ...

feast became the object of national headlines when it was first exhibited at the

and won the prestigious

. The themes of Thanksgiving, rural customs, and family life, which Lee painted in a deliberately folksy manner, would have had great appeal to a country still in the midst of the national devastation of the Great Depression. Her painting offered a quaint model of domesticity that appealed to those who were tired of the complication of modern life in the 1930s. To a generation exhausted with the trials of economic hard times, the return to a simpler past became more desirable as the search for a new national identity continued. Her work received public and critical acclaim for its earthy qualities and sense of humor. One critic described her paintings as "fresh, with the charm of innocence". Thanksgiving celebrates the joys of family ties. The bustling kitchen is filled with life and love as a group of women prepares the annual feast. Yet Josephine Logan, the donor of the prize, condemned the work's broad, exaggerated style and founded the conservative Society for Sanity in Art movement in response. This controversy only brought Lee fame, and ''Thanksgiving'' has been recognized as one of the most popular nostalgic views of this American ritual.

Awards

Lee was awarded the

at the 46th American Exhibition of Painting and Sculpture at the

Art Institute of Chicago The Art Institute of Chicago, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the United States. The museum is based in the Art Institute of Chicago Building in Chicago's Grant Park (Chicago), Grant Park. Its collection, stewa ...

References

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

by Roberta Smith for ''The New York Times'' * Photo of ttp://www.postmarks.org/pop/2900/2979.htm Summerville, GA Post Office mural
Doris Lee Papers, 1896-1987
at

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lee, Doris 1905 births 1983 deaths 20th-century American painters Rockford University alumni American muralists American women illustrators 20th-century American illustrators Kansas City Art Institute alumni San Francisco Art Institute alumni Artists from Woodstock, New York Section of Painting and Sculpture artists 20th-century American women painters American women muralists American women printmakers 20th-century American printmakers