The Westmoreland plans major exhibition of Depression-era artist Doris Lee

The work of Doris Lee, a painter known for her Depression-era murals and depictions of everyday life, will be on exhibit Sept. 26-Jan. 9 in The Westmoreland Museum of American Art in Greensburg.

“Simple Pleasures: The Art of Doris Lee” will feature 77 of the artist’s most notable works, along with selected ephemera, such as product advertisements for the American Tobacco Co. and General Foods, which commissioned paintings from Lee.

The exhibition represents the first major critical assessment of Lee’s work, the museum said.

“Although she had a successful career, Doris Lee was often dismissed because of her decorative, folk art style and her domestic subjects. However, her indulgence in these seemingly simple pleasures, or the deep observation of the mundane activity that surrounds us, permit us to celebrate the everyday,” said The Westmoreland’s Director/CEO Anne Kraybill. “Coming out of the covid-19 pandemic, it is so important that we all take stock and gratefully embrace the simple pleasures in our own lives.”

“Known as one of the foremost American artists during the 1930s and 1940s, Lee was a leading figure in the Woodstock Artist’s Colony,” according to a release. “Lee’s body of work merges the reduction of abstraction with the appeal of the everyday and offers a coherent visual identity that successfully bridged various artistic ‘camps’ that arose in the post-World War II era, truly depicting scenes of the simple pleasures of everyday life.”

Among her work during the 1930s, she was commissioned by the U.S. Treasury Department to create several murals, including two in the main post office in Washington, D.C.

“Simple Pleasures” is co-curated by The Westmoreland’s Chief Curator Barbara L. Jones and Melissa Wolfe, curator of American Art at the Saint Louis Art Museum.

“I have admired Lee’s work for many, many years and through my research, found her tenacity as an artist inspiring,” Jones said. “She found the humor in life, and the joy she took in recreating those simple pleasures is revealed in her paintings, prints and commercial commissions.”

”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,” Wolfe said. “Lee’s mastery in both the commercial and the fine art worlds reflects the remarkable breadth of her abilities.”

The Westmoreland will present a full slate of public programming tied to the exhibition, to be announced later.

When it leaves The Westmoreland, the national traveling exhibition will visit these venues: Figge Art Museum, Davenport, Iowa; Vero Beach (Florida) Museum of Art; and Dixon Gallery and Gardens, Memphis, Tenn.

Details: thewestmoreland.org