Lee Chesney
American
American, (1920–2016)
Lee Chesney, printmaker, painter and educator, was born in Washington, D.C. on June 1, 1920. He studied art at the University of Colorado with James Boyle, receiving his B.F.A in 1946. Chesney continued his studies at the University of Iowa where he worked with Mauricio Lasansky and James Lechay, earning his M.F.A. Further studies took him to Universidad de Michoacan in Mexico where he studied with Alfredo Zalce, and to the renowned experimental printmaking workshop Atelier 17 in New York, under the supervision of founder Stanley William Hayter.

Chesney’s career as an educator included teaching at the University of Southern California, the Otis Art Institute, the University of Illinois-Urbana, and the University of Iowa. He is a member of the College Art Association of American and the Society of American Graphic Artists. Currently he is Professor Emeritus at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

Chesney’s work has garnered numerous awards which included a Fulbright Fellowship in 1956/57. He is represented in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo; National Gallery of Art, Stockholm; Tate Gallery; Bibliothèque nationale de France; Victoria and Albert Museum; Smithsonian Art Museum, National Gallery of Art; Library of Congress; Museum of Modern Art; Brooklyn Museum; Philadelphia Museum; Honolulu Academy of Arts; Oakland Museum; Seattle Museum of Art; Otis Art Institute of Los Angeles County; Portland Art Museum; Art Institute of Chicago; the Butler Institute of American Art and numerous university collections.

Lee Chesney died in Los Angeles on January 21, 2016.