Doris Lee "Life's Small Pleasures"

D. Wigmore Fine Art

poster for Doris Lee "Life's Small Pleasures"

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Doris Lee's paintings celebrate the simple pleasures available to all. In her city scenes, Lee's subjects include a woman dressing up for an evening out, friends sharing a bench in Central Park, and the nightly ambles of dog walkers. In Extended Family she portrays a family gathering on Long Island. Further expressions of the delight in small things can be found in Lee's still lifes, whether toiletries at the dressing table or wine and fruit enjoyed at a family picnic.

Each year from the spring through the fall, Lee spent time at her country house and studio in Woodstock, New York. There she painted local happenings, including a backyard dance rehearsal, a successful vegetable garden, the local archery club, and a memorable skinny dip. Her Woodstock still lifes capture the joy of a new season with spring trout lilies and the first lilacs. On her Florida visits over the winter months, Lee focused on ocean views and seashell-covered beaches seen from the vantage of the sky and the sea. She also celebrated our connection to the natural world in paintings such as The Sphere of Life and Vine Series #7 (Raccoon). Beyond New York City, Woodstock, and Florida, Lee's paintings portray visits to Alabama and the Carolinas on her way to Florida; Life magazine assignments which took her to Mexico, Brazil, and closer to home; as well as visits to historic Shaker villages.

American folk art was a native source of inspiration in Doris Lee's painting. As an early collector of folk and Pre-Columbian art, Lee found the simplified forms and flattened decoration of these arts helpful in her pursuit of fusing abstraction and realism. In The Wall and the Vine Series paintings, Lee's knowledge of folk art combined with playful mixes of unmodulated color bring representational compositions to the edge of abstraction. Lee's choice of close color relationships of one or two hues provide unity within her paintings. Lee's work is both intimate and charming because of her sophisticated yet innocent touch.

[Image: Doris Lee "Approaching the Beach" oil and collage on canvasboard 15 3/4 x 11 3/4 in.]

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Schedule

from September 15, 2010 to November 10, 2010

Artist(s)

Doris Lee

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