Lee Gatch

Lee Gatch (1902-1968), an American artist, was born in a rural community near Baltimore. He graduated from the Maryland Institute College of Art in the early 1920s and then studied in Europe for a few years before returning to the United States. According to the online biography of Gatch at the Phillips Collection website, Gatch exhibited in the Venice Biennials of 1950 and 1956, and he was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1957. Although he is best known for his nature-inspired abstract works, he also worked for a time as a muralist for the WPA. He was married to Precisionist artist Elsie Driggs.

According to MarylandArtSource.com, "His abstract painting style combined elements of Post-Impressionism, Cubism and Symbolism in mystical evocations of nature." The Phillips Collection article asserts that "Gatch strove throughout his career to maintain an individual style based on the American representational tradition while reaching beyond appearances to find meaning through design and color."

Today his work is in the collections of the Guggenheim Museum, the Whitney Museum of American Art, Washington's Phillips Collection, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and others.

References

*Lee Gatch; Adelyn Dohme Breeskin; National Collection of Fine Arts (U.S.); Washington University (Saint Louis, Missouri). Gallery of Art.; Newark Museum. [http://www.worldcatlibraries.org/oclc/226692&referer=brief_results "Lee Gatch, 1902-1968"] (Washington, Published for the National Collection of Fine Arts by the Smithsonian Institution Press, 1971) OCLC 226692
*Lee Gatch. [http://www.worldcatlibraries.org/oclc/1977645&referer=brief_results "Lee Gatch, recent paintings"] (Berne : Stämpfli & Cie., 1963) OCLC 1977645
*Lee Gatch; Dorothy Gees Seckler; World House Galleries. [http://www.worldcatlibraries.org/oclc/45616694&referer=brief_results "Lee Gatch : recent paintings, 1954-1958"] (New York : World House Galleries, 1958) OCLC 45616694
*Perry Townsend Rathbone; American Federation of Arts. [http://www.worldcatlibraries.org/oclc/1213277&referer=brief_results "Lee Gatch"] (New York, 1960) OCLC 1213277

External links

* [http://www.marylandartsource.org/artists/detail_000000161.html MarylandArtSource.com]
* [http://www.askart.com/askart/g/lee_gatch/lee_gatch.aspx Askart.com]
* [http://www.phillipscollection.org/american_art/bios/gatch-bio.htm Phillips Collection] biography of Lee Gatch
* [http://americanart.si.edu/search/artist_bio.cfm?ID=1746 Smithsonian]