Russell Lee

(b Ottawa, IL, 21 July 1903; d Austin, TX, 28 Aug 1986). American photographer. He studied chemical engineering at Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA, from 1917 to 1921. After marrying a painter, Doris Emrick, in 1927 he was inspired to enrol for a painting course at the California School of Fine Arts in San Francisco (1929-31). From 1931 to 1935 he attended classes run by John Sloan at the Art Students League, New York. He bought his first camera as an aid to his drawing but soon became more interested in the medium of photography. By 1935 he had sold some of his work to magazines.

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Lee, Russell (1903-86), American documentary photographer. After graduating in chemical engineering in 1925 he worked in industry until 1929, when he began to attend the California School of Fine Arts, then joined an art community in Woodstock, New York. He bought his first camera in 1935. Hearing of the photographic work of the Farm Security Administration (FSA), he travelled to Washington, DC, to meet FSA director Roy Stryker in 1936, who hired him and sent him on the road for most of the next six years. His most famous FSA photographs are of Pie Town, New Mexico; he also pioneered photographic work in the black districts of Chicago. After war service in the army he worked occasionally for Stryker for the Standard Oil of New Jersey and Pittsburgh Photographic Library projects. He began teaching in the University of Missouri Photo Workshop in 1948, becoming its director in 1953; in 1965 he joined Texas University's Department of Fine Arts.

— Constance B. Schulz

Bibliography

• O'Neal, H., A Vision Shared: A Classic Portrait of America and its People, 1935-1943 (1976).
• Hurley, F. J., Russell Lee, Photographer (1978)