John Lees (artist)
Encyclopedia
John Lees is an American contemporary expressionist
artist
who works primarily in painting.
Lees received the 2005 Francis J. Greenburger Award and has also received the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Hassam, Speicher, Betts and Symonds Art Purchase Award in 2010, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Grant
in 1993 and the National Endowment for the Arts
Fellowship Grant in 1989. His paintings are included in the public collections of the Museum of Modern Art
, the Fogg Art Museum
, The New Museum, the Detroit Institute of Arts
, the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art
, the Arkansas Art Center, the Santa Barbara Museum of Art
, and the Tucson Museum of Art.
Lees also served as an art professor for 40 years at the New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture
(1988–2011), the School of Visual Arts
(1987–2005), Sarah Lawrence College
(2000–2003), State University of New York at New Paltz
(1996–2000), and Mt. San Antonio College
(1971–1981).
in 1943. He moved to Los Angeles in 1950 with his family. After attending Los Angeles City College
from 1961 to 1963, he studied at the Otis Art Institute from 1963 to 1967. He received a Bachelor of Fine Arts
degree from Otis in 1964 and a Master of Fine Arts
in 1967.
. Two years later, in 1977, Lees had a solo exhibition New York City. His second solo exhibition in New York followed in 1980. During this period, Lees also had solo exhibitions in Detroit
(1979) and in San Francisco
(1981). In 1981, Lees moved to New York City. He presented his third solo exhibition in New York in 1983. In its review of Lees' 1983 exhibition, The New York Times wrote:
In the mid-1980s, Lees became associated with Hirschl & Adler Modern in New York. He presented his first solo exhibition at Hirschl & Adler in 1986 with additional solo exhibitions there in 1989, 1993, 1996, 1998, and 1999. During this period, Lees also had solo exhibitions in London, Chicago, Boston (1992, 1997, 2003, and 2005), and Italy. In describing Lees' 1996 show, art critic Holland Cotter
described Lees' work as "intense" and "surprisingly graceful" and wrote that the artist's "clotted and encrusted brown pigments, look as if they were lifted straight from the earth," but with each image seemingly "packed with references and energies beyond the naturalistic." Following a 2007 exhibition, a reviewer for The New York Times wrote:
In 1987, Money
magazine reported that Lees' 69-inch-by-89-inch painting of an armchair, which sold in 1974 for $1,800, was valued at $30,000.
In 1990, Lees moved to Leeds, New York
. Lees and his wife, Ruth, who is also a painter, have maintained their studio and home there since that time. One of the unusual characteristics of Lees' paintings is his tendency to work on a single canvas for as long as 30 years. Following his 2003 show, Cate McQuaid wrote in the Boston Globe:
In 2008, Lees became associated with the Betty Cunningham Gallery in New York. He has had exhibitions there in 2008, 2009, and 2011. Following his 2008 exhibition, David Cohen titled his review in the New York Sun
"Deliciously Distressed" and emphasized Lees' tendency to rework the same canvas for years:
(1988–2011), the School of Visual Arts
(1987–2005), Sarah Lawrence College
(2000–2003), State University of New York at New Paltz
(1996–2000), and Mt. San Antonio College
(1971–1981). He has also been a visiting artist at Wayne State University
(1978), Vermont Studio Center
(1989, 2000–2002), and the International School of Art in Umbria, Montecastello de Vibio, Italy (1997, 2000).
in 1993 and the National Endowment for the Arts
Fellowship Grant in 1989.
Lees' paintings are included in the public collections of New York's Museum of Modern Art
, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
, Harvard University
's Fogg Art Museum
, New York's New Museum, the Detroit Institute of Arts
, the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art
, the Brooklyn Museum
, Pittsburgh's Carnegie Museum of Art
, the Arkansas Art Center, the Santa Barbara Museum of Art
, the Cleveland Museum of Art
, Dartmouth College
's Hood Museum of Art
, Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego
, the University of Kansas
' Spencer Museum of Art
, the University of New Mexico Art Museum
, the University Museum of Contemporary Art
at the University of Massachusetts Amherst
, the Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum
at Rutgers University
, the Ackland Art Museum
at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
, and the Tucson Museum of Art.
Expressionism
Expressionism was a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radically for emotional effect in order to evoke moods or ideas...
artist
Artist
An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...
who works primarily in painting.
Lees received the 2005 Francis J. Greenburger Award and has also received the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Hassam, Speicher, Betts and Symonds Art Purchase Award in 2010, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Grant
John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation
The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation was founded in 1925 by Mr. and Mrs. Simon Guggenheim in memory of their son, who died April 26, 1922...
in 1993 and the National Endowment for the Arts
National Endowment for the Arts
The National Endowment for the Arts is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created by an act of the U.S. Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government. Its current...
Fellowship Grant in 1989. His paintings are included in the public collections of the Museum of Modern Art
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
, the Fogg Art Museum
Fogg Art Museum
The Fogg Museum, opened to the public in 1896, is the oldest of Harvard University's art museums. The Fogg joins the Busch-Reisinger Museum and the Arthur M. Sackler Museum as part of the Harvard Art Museums....
, The New Museum, the Detroit Institute of Arts
Detroit Institute of Arts
The Detroit Institute of Arts is a renowned art museum in the city of Detroit. In 2003, the DIA ranked as the second largest municipally owned museum in the United States, with an art collection valued at more than one billion dollars...
, the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art
Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art
The Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art opened in 1994 in Kansas City, Missouri. The core of the museum's permanent collection is the Bebe and R. Crosby Kemper Jr. Collection, a gift of the museum's founders. The collection includes works created after the 1913 Armory Show to works by present-day...
, the Arkansas Art Center, the Santa Barbara Museum of Art
Santa Barbara Museum of Art
The Santa Barbara Museum of Art is an art museum located at 1130 State St. in downtown Santa Barbara, California.It was founded in 1941 and currently ranks amongst the top 10 regional art museums in the United States . It is home to both permanent and special collections, the former of which...
, and the Tucson Museum of Art.
Lees also served as an art professor for 40 years at the New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture
New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture
The New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture at 8 West 8th Street, in Greenwich Village, Manhattan, New York City, New York State is an art school formed in 1963 by a group of students and their teacher, Mercedes Matter, all of whom had become disenchanted with the fragmented...
(1988–2011), the School of Visual Arts
School of Visual Arts
The School of Visual Arts , is a proprietary art school located in Manhattan, New York City, and is widely considered to be one of the leading art schools in the United States. It was established in 1947 by co-founders Silas H. Rhodes and Burne Hogarth as the Cartoonists and Illustrators School and...
(1987–2005), Sarah Lawrence College
Sarah Lawrence College
Sarah Lawrence College is a private liberal arts college in the United States, and a leader in progressive education since its founding in 1926. Located just 30 minutes north of Midtown Manhattan in southern Westchester County, New York, in the city of Yonkers, this coeducational college offers...
(2000–2003), State University of New York at New Paltz
State University of New York at New Paltz
The State University of New York at New Paltz, known as SUNY New Paltz for short, is a public university in New Paltz, New York. It was founded in 1828 as the School for teaching of classics. In 1885, the New Paltz Normal and Training School was established as a school to prepare teachers for the...
(1996–2000), and Mt. San Antonio College
Mt. San Antonio College
Mt. San Antonio College is a community college located in the Los Angeles suburb of Walnut, California, 2.12 miles west of California State Polytechnic University, Pomona ....
(1971–1981).
Education and background
Lees was born in Denville, New JerseyDenville, New Jersey
Denville is a township in Morris County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the township population was 16,635. Denville is known as the "Hub of Morris County" for its location along major transportation routes at the center of the county...
in 1943. He moved to Los Angeles in 1950 with his family. After attending Los Angeles City College
Los Angeles City College
Los Angeles City College, known as LACC, is a public community college in the East Hollywood section of Los Angeles, California. A part of the Los Angeles Community College District, it is located on Vermont Avenue south of Santa Monica Boulevard...
from 1961 to 1963, he studied at the Otis Art Institute from 1963 to 1967. He received a Bachelor of Fine Arts
Bachelor of Fine Arts
In the United States and Canada, the Bachelor of Fine Arts degree, usually abbreviated BFA, is the standard undergraduate degree for students seeking a professional education in the visual or performing arts. In some countries such a degree is called a Bachelor of Creative Arts or BCA...
degree from Otis in 1964 and a Master of Fine Arts
Master of Fine Arts
A Master of Fine Arts is a graduate degree typically requiring 2–3 years of postgraduate study beyond the bachelor's degree , although the term of study will vary by country or by university. The MFA is usually awarded in visual arts, creative writing, filmmaking, dance, or theatre/performing arts...
in 1967.
Painting and exhibitions
In 1975, Lees had a solo exhibition in Santa Barbara, CaliforniaSanta Barbara, California
Santa Barbara is the county seat of Santa Barbara County, California, United States. Situated on an east-west trending section of coastline, the longest such section on the West Coast of the United States, the city lies between the steeply-rising Santa Ynez Mountains and the Pacific Ocean...
. Two years later, in 1977, Lees had a solo exhibition New York City. His second solo exhibition in New York followed in 1980. During this period, Lees also had solo exhibitions in Detroit
Detroit, Michigan
Detroit is the major city among the primary cultural, financial, and transportation centers in the Metro Detroit area, a region of 5.2 million people. As the seat of Wayne County, the city of Detroit is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan and serves as a major port on the Detroit River...
(1979) and in San Francisco
San Francisco, California
San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...
(1981). In 1981, Lees moved to New York City. He presented his third solo exhibition in New York in 1983. In its review of Lees' 1983 exhibition, The New York Times wrote:
"John Lees's landscapes and heads are almost incidental to his technique. This, in turn, is less a matter of applying oil paint than of allowing it to accumulate until the canvas looks like a fragment of some ancient, lumpy wall. ... The work is on the precious side and might pall if administered in large doses, but there's scant danger of that, given the artist's glacial rate of production."
In the mid-1980s, Lees became associated with Hirschl & Adler Modern in New York. He presented his first solo exhibition at Hirschl & Adler in 1986 with additional solo exhibitions there in 1989, 1993, 1996, 1998, and 1999. During this period, Lees also had solo exhibitions in London, Chicago, Boston (1992, 1997, 2003, and 2005), and Italy. In describing Lees' 1996 show, art critic Holland Cotter
Holland Cotter
Holland Cotter is an art critic with the New York Times. In 2009, he won the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Cotter was born in Connecticut and grew up in Boston, Massachusetts. He earned his A.B. from Harvard College in 1970, where he studied English literature under poet Robert Lowell and was an...
described Lees' work as "intense" and "surprisingly graceful" and wrote that the artist's "clotted and encrusted brown pigments, look as if they were lifted straight from the earth," but with each image seemingly "packed with references and energies beyond the naturalistic." Following a 2007 exhibition, a reviewer for The New York Times wrote:
"The artist John Lees is one of the most accomplished expressionist painters of his generation. He is also one of the most under-recognized, at least when it comes to inclusion within museum collections and the sort of group exhibitions that help build a reputation. He has the distinction, however, of having exhibited continuously in private galleries since 1969."
In 1987, Money
Money (magazine)
Money is published by Time Inc. Its first issue was published in October 1972. Its articles cover the gamut of personal finance topics ranging from investing, saving, retirement and taxes to family finance issues like paying for college, credit, career and home improvement...
magazine reported that Lees' 69-inch-by-89-inch painting of an armchair, which sold in 1974 for $1,800, was valued at $30,000.
In 1990, Lees moved to Leeds, New York
Leeds, New York
Leeds is a hamlet in Greene County, New York, United States. The population was 377 at the 2010 census.Leeds is located near the north town line of the Town of Catskill...
. Lees and his wife, Ruth, who is also a painter, have maintained their studio and home there since that time. One of the unusual characteristics of Lees' paintings is his tendency to work on a single canvas for as long as 30 years. Following his 2003 show, Cate McQuaid wrote in the Boston Globe:
"John Lees has paintings of his wife, Ruth, that he has been working on since the '70s. Over 30 years, exploring the image of his wife with a paintbrush and a palette knife, Lees delves deeper and deeper into their relationship. ... Lees lives with his paintings. He builds them up, adds on to their borders, sands them down, then builds some more."
In 2008, Lees became associated with the Betty Cunningham Gallery in New York. He has had exhibitions there in 2008, 2009, and 2011. Following his 2008 exhibition, David Cohen titled his review in the New York Sun
New York Sun
The New York Sun was a weekday daily newspaper published in New York City from 2002 to 2008. When it debuted on April 16, 2002, adopting the name, motto, and masthead of an otherwise unrelated earlier New York paper, The Sun , it became the first general-interest broadsheet newspaper to be started...
"Deliciously Distressed" and emphasized Lees' tendency to rework the same canvas for years:
"What is primarily to love and at the same time distrust about Mr. Lees is his self-professed obsessiveness. This takes the form, in the mottled surfaces of his slowly worked landscapes, figure studies, and still life paintings, of accretion, stress, and mutedness. ... Mr. Lees's surfaces are deliciously distressed. His pictures have the battered, timeworn quality of a masterpiece discovered in a thrift store. His portraits — whether of his wife, 'Ruth (Face)' (1979–2005); a familiar cartoon pig in 'Pompeiian Porky' (2003–07), or the jazzman Bix BeiderbeckeBix BeiderbeckeLeon Bismark "Bix" Beiderbecke was an American jazz cornetist, jazz pianist, and composer.With Louis Armstrong, Beiderbecke was one of the most influential jazz soloists of the 1920s...
, in 'Rhythm King' (1984–2008) — have a TrecentoTrecentoThe Trecento refers to the 14th century in Italian cultural history.Commonly the Trecento is considered to be the beginning of the Renaissance in art history...
primitivism about them."
Professor of art
In addition to his own painting, Lees has served as an art professor for 40 years at the New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting and SculptureNew York Studio School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture
The New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture at 8 West 8th Street, in Greenwich Village, Manhattan, New York City, New York State is an art school formed in 1963 by a group of students and their teacher, Mercedes Matter, all of whom had become disenchanted with the fragmented...
(1988–2011), the School of Visual Arts
School of Visual Arts
The School of Visual Arts , is a proprietary art school located in Manhattan, New York City, and is widely considered to be one of the leading art schools in the United States. It was established in 1947 by co-founders Silas H. Rhodes and Burne Hogarth as the Cartoonists and Illustrators School and...
(1987–2005), Sarah Lawrence College
Sarah Lawrence College
Sarah Lawrence College is a private liberal arts college in the United States, and a leader in progressive education since its founding in 1926. Located just 30 minutes north of Midtown Manhattan in southern Westchester County, New York, in the city of Yonkers, this coeducational college offers...
(2000–2003), State University of New York at New Paltz
State University of New York at New Paltz
The State University of New York at New Paltz, known as SUNY New Paltz for short, is a public university in New Paltz, New York. It was founded in 1828 as the School for teaching of classics. In 1885, the New Paltz Normal and Training School was established as a school to prepare teachers for the...
(1996–2000), and Mt. San Antonio College
Mt. San Antonio College
Mt. San Antonio College is a community college located in the Los Angeles suburb of Walnut, California, 2.12 miles west of California State Polytechnic University, Pomona ....
(1971–1981). He has also been a visiting artist at Wayne State University
Wayne State University
Wayne State University is a public research university located in Detroit, Michigan, United States, in the city's Midtown Cultural Center Historic District. Founded in 1868, WSU consists of 13 schools and colleges offering more than 400 major subject areas to over 32,000 graduate and...
(1978), Vermont Studio Center
Vermont Studio Center
The Vermont Studio Center is a non-profit organization located in the town of Johnson in the U.S. state of Vermont. VSC conducts the largest fine arts and writing residency program in the U.S., with a significant population of international artists in residency...
(1989, 2000–2002), and the International School of Art in Umbria, Montecastello de Vibio, Italy (1997, 2000).
Awards and museum collections
In 2005, Lees received the Francis J. Greenburger Award. He also received the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Hassam, Speicher, Betts and Symonds Art Purchase Award in 2010, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation GrantJohn Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation
The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation was founded in 1925 by Mr. and Mrs. Simon Guggenheim in memory of their son, who died April 26, 1922...
in 1993 and the National Endowment for the Arts
National Endowment for the Arts
The National Endowment for the Arts is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created by an act of the U.S. Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government. Its current...
Fellowship Grant in 1989.
Lees' paintings are included in the public collections of New York's Museum of Modern Art
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum is a well-known museum located on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City, United States. It is the permanent home to a renowned collection of Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, early Modern, and contemporary art and also features special exhibitions...
, Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
's Fogg Art Museum
Fogg Art Museum
The Fogg Museum, opened to the public in 1896, is the oldest of Harvard University's art museums. The Fogg joins the Busch-Reisinger Museum and the Arthur M. Sackler Museum as part of the Harvard Art Museums....
, New York's New Museum, the Detroit Institute of Arts
Detroit Institute of Arts
The Detroit Institute of Arts is a renowned art museum in the city of Detroit. In 2003, the DIA ranked as the second largest municipally owned museum in the United States, with an art collection valued at more than one billion dollars...
, the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art
Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art
The Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art opened in 1994 in Kansas City, Missouri. The core of the museum's permanent collection is the Bebe and R. Crosby Kemper Jr. Collection, a gift of the museum's founders. The collection includes works created after the 1913 Armory Show to works by present-day...
, the Brooklyn Museum
Brooklyn Museum
The Brooklyn Museum is an encyclopedia art museum located in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. At 560,000 square feet, the museum holds New York City's second largest art collection with roughly 1.5 million works....
, Pittsburgh's Carnegie Museum of Art
Carnegie Museum of Art
The Carnegie Museum of Art, located in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is an art museum founded in 1895 by the Pittsburgh-based industrialist Andrew Carnegie...
, the Arkansas Art Center, the Santa Barbara Museum of Art
Santa Barbara Museum of Art
The Santa Barbara Museum of Art is an art museum located at 1130 State St. in downtown Santa Barbara, California.It was founded in 1941 and currently ranks amongst the top 10 regional art museums in the United States . It is home to both permanent and special collections, the former of which...
, the Cleveland Museum of Art
Cleveland Museum of Art
The Cleveland Museum of Art is an art museum situated in the Wade Park District, in the University Circle neighborhood on Cleveland's east side. Internationally renowned for its substantial holdings of Asian and Egyptian art, the museum houses a diverse permanent collection of more than 43,000...
, Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College is a private, Ivy League university in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. The institution comprises a liberal arts college, Dartmouth Medical School, Thayer School of Engineering, and the Tuck School of Business, as well as 19 graduate programs in the arts and sciences...
's Hood Museum of Art
Hood Museum of Art
The Hood Museum of Art is a museum in Hanover, New Hampshire, USA. Dating back to 1772, the museum is owned and operated by Dartmouth College and is connected to the Hopkins Center for the Arts. The current building, designed by Charles Willard Moore and Chad Flloyd, opened in the fall of 1985. It...
, Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego
Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego
The Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego , in San Diego, California, USA, is an art museum focused on the collection, preservation, exhibition, and interpretation of works of art from 1950 to the present.-History:...
, the University of Kansas
University of Kansas
The University of Kansas is a public research university and the largest university in the state of Kansas. KU campuses are located in Lawrence, Wichita, Overland Park, and Kansas City, Kansas with the main campus being located in Lawrence on Mount Oread, the highest point in Lawrence. The...
' Spencer Museum of Art
Spencer Museum of Art
The Spencer Museum of Art, or SMA, is an art museum on the campus of University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kansas. While admission is free, donations are accepted. Also located inside the Spencer Museum of Art are the Kress Foundation Department of Art History, and the Murphy Library of Art &...
, the University of New Mexico Art Museum
University of New Mexico Art Museum
The University of New Mexico Art Museum is an art museum at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque...
, the University Museum of Contemporary Art
University Museum of Contemporary Art
The University Museum of Contemporary Art in a contemporary art museum on the campus of the University of Massachusetts Amherst. The UMCA has been housed in the university's Fine Arts Center since 1975, after the university began collecting works in 1962...
at the University of Massachusetts Amherst
University of Massachusetts Amherst
The University of Massachusetts Amherst is a public research and land-grant university in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States and the flagship of the University of Massachusetts system...
, the Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum
Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum
The Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum is located on the Voorhees Mall of the campus of Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. It was founded in 1966...
at Rutgers University
Rutgers University
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey , is the largest institution for higher education in New Jersey, United States. It was originally chartered as Queen's College in 1766. It is the eighth-oldest college in the United States and one of the nine Colonial colleges founded before the American...
, the Ackland Art Museum
Ackland Art Museum
The Ackland Art Museum is a museum and academic unit of The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It was founded through the bequest of William Hayes Ackland to The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It is located at 101 S...
at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is a public research university located in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States...
, and the Tucson Museum of Art.