Leo Dee

Dee was born in Newark, New Jersey, on July 8, 1931. He attended Newark Arts High School, graduating in 1950 with a three-year scholarship to attend the Newark School of Fine and Industrial Arts. Drafted into the U.S. Army in 1953, he served two years in Fort Meade and, returning to civilian life, re-entered the Newark School of Fine and Industrial Arts under the G.I. Bill. While a student at that school, he took classes from instructors who had established reputations in their respective fields, including Leopold Matzal (portrait painting), James Rosati and Reuben Nakian (sculpture), and Ben Cunningham (color theory). Among them were two artists associated with the precisionist movement whose teaching had lasting influence on Dee's mature style. One of the two, Charles Goeller, showed Dee how to create realistic drawings in fine detail, and the other, Hans Weingaertner, showed him how to make paintings having "precise and quiet form" and ''trompe l'oeil'' realism. ==Mature style==

When Newark's Rabin & Krueger Gallery gave Dee his first solo exhibition in 1957, he was making paintings in an abstract style. However, impressed by the gallery's display of silverpoint drawings by Joseph Stella, he subsequently made a transition to an austere style in that medium. ==Art teacher==

In 1958, Dee was appointed as an instructor of drawing and painting at the Newark School of Fine & Industrial Art. He later became the school's principal instructor of realistic drawing, retiring in 1993. Thereafter he taught evening classes at the Visual Arts Center of New Jersey in Summit, N.J. and was periodically a visiting instructor at Seton Hall University in South Orange, N.J. ==Personal information==

Dee was born on July 8, 1931, in Newark, New Jersey. His parents were Leo J. Dee and Elenor K. Dee. It is suggested that his maternal grandmother, an artist who had attended the predecessor of the school where Dee learned and later taught art, influenced his decision to become an artist himself. In 1963, Dee married the art historian and museum curator Elaine Evans. She had previously been married to William H. Gerdts, the author of an essay on Dee that appeared in the catalog for Dee's solo show at the Coe Kerr Gallery in 1975. In 1993, Dee retired from his teaching position at the Newark School of Fine and Industrial Arts, and three years later, after short-term, part-time teaching stints in northern New Jersey, he and Elaine Evans moved permanently to Truro, Massachusetts, a village on Cape Cod where they had previously spent summer vacations. There, he continued to make silverpoint drawings using elements in the local landscape for his subjects. He died in Truro on November 22, 2004. Other names As his professional name, Dee used Leo Dee or sometimes Leo J. Dee. When young, he was known as Leo J. Dee, Jr. His friends and family called him Joe Dee. ==Exhibitions==

During the 1970s and 1980s, Dee exhibited frequently in New Jersey galleries and museums and occasionally, as well, in New York. This list is representative, not comprehensive. It comes from art web sites, galleries, a book, and many news accounts. • 1957 solo, Rabin & Krueger, Newark, New Jersey • 1957 group, "New Talents," Newark Foam Rubber Center, Newark, New Jersey • 1959 group, Newark Museum, New Jersey • 1963 group, "Forms in Contemporary Art," Newark Museum, New Jersey • 1964 group, traveling exhibition of contemporary American drawings • 1966 group, "Yesterday and Tomorrow," Mark of the Phoenix Gallery, New York • 1966 group, "Meticulous Realism," Tawes Art Center, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland • 1966 group, "Art From New Jersey," New Jersey State Museum, Trenton • 1966 group, "100 contemporary drawings," Drawing Society and American Federation of Arts, New York • 1967 group, "Geometric Art: An Exhibition of Paintings and Constructions by Fourteen Contemporary New Jersey Artists," New Jersey State Museum, Trenton • 1970 group, "Fourth Invitational Painting and Sculpture Exhibition," Van Deusen Gallery, Kent State University • 1975 solo, retrospective exhibition, Coe Kerr Gallery, New York • 1978 solo, "29 Drawings by Leo Dee," New Jersey State Museum, Trenton • 1979 solo, "The Art of Leo Dee," New Jersey State Museum, Trenton • 1980 group, "New Jersey Masters, 1980," Gill/St. Bernard's School, Gladstone, New Jersey • 1981 group, Kean College Art Gallery, Union, New Jersey • 1982 group, "The accessible joys of American still life," touring exhibition • 1982 group, Coe Kerr Gallery, New York • 1984 group, "B Orwell's '1984' Interpreted By New Jersey Artists," Newark Museum, New Jersey • 1985 group, "Fifth New Jersey Artists Biennial," Newark Museum, New Jersey • 1985 group, "The Fine Line," Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, Florida • 1991 group, "102 Prints," Newark Public Library, Newark, New Jersey • 1991 group, "11th New Jersey Arts Annual Exhibition," Montclair Art Museum, Montclair, New Jersey • 1992 group, "Aspects of Realism," Trenton State Museum, Trenton • 1994 group, "More Than Meets the Eye," Morris Museum, Morristown, New Jersey • 1998 group, "For Beauty and for Truth: The William and Abigail Gerdts Collection of American Still Life," Berry-Hill Galleries, New York • 2005 solo, "Power Line: The Art of Leo Dee," Boston Athenæum, Boston, Massachusetts • 2015 group, "Drawing in Silver and Gold: Leonardo to Jasper Johns," National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. ==Collections==

This list is representative, not comprehensive. It comes from art web sites and museums. • Columbus Museum, Columbus, Ohio • Cooper-Hewitt Museum, N.Y. • Fannie E. Rippel Foundation, Newark, N.J. • Fogg Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. • Hunter Museum of American Art, Chattanooga, Tenn. • New Jersey State Museum, Trenton, N.J. • Newark Museum, Newark, N.J. • Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, Penn. • Springfield Museum of Art, Springfield, Mass. • Utah Museum of Fine Arts, Salt Lake City, Utah • Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Conn. ==Notes==