Simple Pleasures

A traveling exhibition beginning at the Westmoreland Museum of American Art sheds light on the compelling art of Doris Lee

Through January 9, 2022

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An exhibition devoted to 20th-century painter Doris Lee’s unique, illustrative artwork has been a long time coming. Known for her figurative painting and printmaking, Lee dealt in both realism and modernism, her paintings evoking bright colors and sentiments of joy and playfulness. And now, the exhibition Simple Pleasures: The Art of Doris Lee, held at The Westmoreland Museum of American Art in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, will feature 77 of the most noteworthy works by the artist.Doris Lee (1905-1983), Thanksgiving, 1935. Oil on canvas, 281/8 x 401/8 in. The Art Institute of Chicago, Mr. and Mrs. Frank G. Logan Purchase Prize Fund, 1935.313. © Estate of Doris Lee. Courtesy D. Wigmore Fine Art, Inc. Photo: Art Resource, NY.

“The goal of this exhibition is to give overdue recognition to Doris Lee, an artist who successfully navigated the marginalization of both female and figurative art and kept it as a coherent vision throughout her career, even as abstract expressionism became the dominant style in the art world,” says Barbara Jones, chief curator at the Westmoreland Museum, who co-curated the show alongside Melissa Wolfe, curator of American art at the St. Louis Art Museum. “[Lee] pushed against that idea,” Jones continues. “She saw all her work, including the myriad commercial commissions she accepted, as equally creative. Her work was often dismissed by critics as not being serious because of her folksy and often humorous subject matter.” Wolf says, “Lee is an exemplar of how many leading female and figurative artists found outlets to produce extraordinary works of art that challenge the artists’ marginalization both in their day and often still today.”Doris Lee (1905-1983), Fisherman’s Wife, 1944. Oil on canvas, 22½ x 28½ in. Cranbrook Art Museum, Gift of George Gough Booth and Ellen Scripps Booth through The Cranbrook Foundation, CAM 1945.27. © Estate of Doris Lee, Courtesy D. Wigmore Fine Art, Inc. Photo: R.H. Hensleigh & Tim Thayer.

Doris Lee (1905-1983), Oranges and Avocados, ca. 1950s. Oil on canvas, 16 x 20 in. The Westmoreland Museum of American Art, Greensburg, PA. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Charles H. Booth, Jr. and Burrell Group, Inc., 2009.10. © Estate of Doris Lee, Courtesy D. Wigmore Fine Art, Inc. Photo: Richard A. Stoner.

The artist was well-known in the American art world during themid-1930s to 1950s, Jones explains, but her work gradually lost recognition as she developed Alzheimer’s disease in 1968, 15 years before her death in 1983. Several standout paintings in the exhibition include Thanksgiving, a bustling joyous scene capturing the busyness and excitement of the holiday; her still life Oranges and Avocados; as well as The View, Woodstock. The latter is an example of Lee “merging [her] abstraction and folk style,” Jones says. “For sheer beauty of atmosphere and mood, [I also love] Garden in Moonlight,” she adds.

“We hope visitors will find the same pleasure in the simple things that Lee has depicted in her work,” says Jones. “Her work draws on folk art, abstraction and art history and shows her ability to merge all three successfully.”

Simple Pleasures: The Art of Doris Lee will be on view at The Westmoreland Museum through January 9, 2022. It then continues on to Figge Art Museum running February 5 to May 8; Vero Beach Museum of Art June 5 to September 18; and finally Dixon Gallery and Gardens from October 30 to January 15, 2023. —