Annie Frances Lee - Artist

Annie Francess Lee

Artist Annie Frances Lee was a Chief Clerk in the Engineering Department of a railroad. Today, Annie Lee is an internationally acclaimed artist and gallery owner known to art collectors the world over as "Annie Lee."

As an adult, one Monday morning at five o'clock as Annie Lee tried to get it together, she came up with "Blue Monday." She wondered if anybody else felt as bad as she did having to go out on that cold winter morning to catch the bus to work. Annie Lee is a humorist and a realist and her style has been referred to as "Black Americana."

Annie Lee will tell you her secret to success is her faith in God and a willingness to help others. God did this through me. You have to have faith. I never thought I would leave the railroad, but it was the best thing I ever did. It was hard to leave the security, but you have to take a leap of faith."

Her works have been featured in "ER", Bill Cosby's spin-off show "A Different World" and Eddie Murphy's movies "Coming to America" and "Boomerang".

 

WHY NO FACES????

All characters in Annie's paintings have one common trait; faces which has no features. Why does Annie paint in this manner? Here are Annie's reasons:

• Annie Lee prefers to bring her paintings to life through the movement and body language of the characters. Annie does not want faces to interfere with the story she is painting through the body language of her characters.
• By painting without faces, Annie allows her customers to project themselves or people that they know into the painting. Although Blue Monday is Annie's only self portrait, Annie didn't paint her face on the painting because she knows everybody can relate to having a Blue Monday, and wants her customers to be able to picture themselves in the painting.
• When Annie started painting commercially she wanted to be unique and different from other artists. Painting without faces has certainly become one of Annie's distinct trademarks.

n.p. Annie Lee Gifts. n.d.http://www.annieleegifts.com/Annie-Lee.htm. 24 Feb 2011.


More Bio about Annie Lee


Artist Annie Frances Lee was born on March 3, 1935 in Gadsden, Alabama. Raised by a single parent, she grew up in Chicago, Illinois and attended Wendell Phillips High School. Lee began painting at an early age, winning her first art competition at the age of ten. She was offered a four year scholarship to Northwestern University after high school, but married instead and raised a family.


It was not until age forty that Lee decided to pursue a career as an artist. She enrolled in Loop Junior College and completed her undergraduate work at Mundelein College in Chicago. After eight years of night classes while working at Northwestern Railroad as a clerk in the engineering department, Lee earned her M.A. degree in interdisciplinary arts education from Loyola University.


Lee's railroad job inspired one of her most popular paintings, Blue Monday, which depicts a woman struggling to pull herself out of bed on a Monday morning. Her trademarks are the animated emotion of the personalities in the artwork and the faces which are painted without features. At age fifty, Lee had her first gallery show. She allowed prints to be made of four of her original paintings. Using her unique designs, Lee also developed figurines, high fashion dolls, decorative housewares, and kitchen tiles.


After showing her work in other galleries for a number of years, Lee opened Annie Lee and Friends Gallery where she displayed her works as well as the works of other artists. When several of her paintings appeared on the sets of popular television shows such as The Cosby Show and A Different World, the exposure helped popularize her work.


Although she regularly receives requests for public appearances, Lee prefers to appear at gallery shows. She also enjoys visiting schools to encourage and inspire students.


"Annie Frances Lee Biography." The HistoryMakers.com. The History Makers, 5 April 2007. Web. 24 February. 2011 2009.