Jocelyn Lee is an American contemporary artist and photographer currently based in Portland, Maine and Brooklyn, New York.
Jocelyn Lee has been making psychological portraits for over 35 years; she also works in a variety of genres including still life and landscape. Her work has been exhibited internationally and is included in many public and private collections. She works exclusively in film with a medium format camera. Lee has published three monographs: "The Youngest Parents" with Dr. Robert Coles (DoubleTake Books 1996); "Nowhere but Here" with a foreword by Sharon Olds (Steidl, 2010); and "Sovereign" which includes an essay by curator Dr. April Watson (Minor Matters Books, 2020).
Lee is also the founder of SPEEDWELL projects in Portland, Maine, a nonprofit gallery dedicated to promoting the work of mid to late career women, BIPOC and LGBTQ+ artists who deserve greater critical attention.
Lee was born in Naples, Italy. She received a B.A. from Yale University in Studio Art and Photography and an M.F.A. in Photography from the City University of New York at Hunter College.[2]
Career
Jocelyn Lee was born in Naples Italy and received her B.A. in philosophy and visual arts from Yale University, and her M.F.A in photography from Hunter College. In 2013 she received a NYFA Fellowship, and in 2001 she received a Guggenheim Fellowship.
She is represented by Huxley Parlour Gallery in London, and Flatland Gallery in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
Her third monograph "Sovereign" was published by Minor Matters Books in November 2020 with an essay by curator Dr. April Watson; her first monograph "Nowhere but here" was published by Steidl Publishers in December 2010 with a foreword by Sharon Olds; and in 1996 her work The Youngest Parents was published by DoubleTake Books and The Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University in collaboration with Robert Coles and John Moses.
Lee has exhibited nationally and internationally, most recently in solo shows at the Huxley-Parlour Gallery, London (2018) and The Center for Maine Contemporary Art in Rockland, Maine (2018). She has also been included in significant group shows at the DeCordova Museum in Lincoln, Massachusetts (2018); the Portland Museum of Art, Portland, Maine (2017) and (2013) for which she won a purchase prize; Wesleyan University (2017); Rose Gallery in L.A. (2017); Pace MacGill Gallery (2017); The Print Space in London, UK (2014); The Nelson Atkins Museum in Kansas City, MO (2014); and the John Michael Kohler Arts Center in Sheboygan, WI (2014)
Other significant solo and large exhibitions of her work include a solo show at Flatland Gallery in Amsterdam, the Netherlands (2012); Rose Gallery in L.A. (2011) and Pace MacGill Gallery in NY (2010) to accompany her the publication of her monograph Nowhere but here; “Feature Photography” at The National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, (2008); "Last Light" at The University of Southern Maine, Solo (2008); Pace MacGill Gallery in NY, Solo (2007) and Group (2005); The De Cordova Museum in Waltham, MA (2007); The Center for Maine Contemporary Art, Rockland, ME, Solo (2007), The University of Maine Museum of Art, Solo (2006); Stone Hill College, Easton, MA, Solo (2005);The Bernard Toale Gallery, Boston, MA, Solo (2004/2003); The Bates College Museum of Art in Augusta, ME, (2004); The Smith College Museum of Art in Northampton, MA (2004); The Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville, ME, (2004); Jackson Fine Art in Atlanta, GA, (2003); The LFL Gallery in NYC, Solo (2001); The Portland Museum of Art in Portland, ME, (2001); and The Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA(2000).
Her works are in the collections of Maison Europeen de la Photographie, Paris, France; The Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany; The Yale Museum of Art, New Haven, CT; The List Center at MIT, Cambridge, MA; The Portland Museum of Art; Portland, ME; The Nelson Atkins Museum, Kansas City, MO.; The Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville, ME; The Haggerty Museum of Art, Milwaukee, Wisconsin; The Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Brunswick, ME; The Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, N.C.; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX; The Bates College Museum of Art. Lewiston, ME; The Farnsworth Art Museum, Rockport, ME; The Margulies Collection; as well as numerous other private collections.
Her work has appeared in many national and international publications including The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, New York Magazine, Photo Raw (Helsinki, Finland), Snoeks (Germany), Real Simple, MORE magazine, PDN, Allegra (The Netherlands), DoubleTake, the Hayden Review, Marie Claire (Taiwan) and Harper’s and others.
Lee creates color photographic portraits, oftentimes of people who she knows such as family members, as well as of people whom she's never before met. She finds models for some of her photographs by placing ads in local newspapers. Many of her subjects are depicted nude or are minimally dressed. Some of her photographs depict landscapes and many of her portraits were taken outdoors. The American poet Sharon Olds wrote the foreword to Lee's book "Jocelyn Lee: Nowhere But Here" (2010).
References
^Gaston, Diana (October 2003). "The Face of Contemporary Portraiture". Art New England. 24 (6).