Biography
Lee (nee Elyse Crouse) was born in California in 1928. She attended the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland in 1946-47. From 1947-1955 she was a designer in San Francisco. After studying briefly with N. Eric Oback at San Jose State College and Alexander Nepote, she began to exhibit in 1959. Aside from these areas of professional study, Weiss is primarily self-taught. In 1962, Weiss and her husband moved to Madison, WI where she continues to live.
Weiss has received innumerable honors and awards for her work including awards from the American Watercolor Society and the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters. She has participated in group and invitational shows as well as one-woman exhibits. Her art works are in public collections including the National Academy of Design in New York, the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C. and the National Museum of American Art, also in Washington, D.C. Corporate collections which include her work are General Motors, the Hearst Corporation, and the Pillsbury Company. Her art has been featured in many publications including three books she published herself.
Known particularly as a watercolorist, it has been pointed out that "Weiss begins by soaking the paper, often with only a vague image in her inner eye of what she wants to represent. She applies the paint with supple long haired brushes. The paint flows, creeps, eddies and crawls across the surface, suggesting forms and creating areas of unplanned negative space..." Weiss notes that she mixes her own colors suggesting that while her paintings might appear monochromatic, they employ a multitude of colors. She works in paper sized up to 40" x 72" which requires fast painting. She paints in her studio and does not work from sketches or slides. Her scenes are created from what she has "observed, distilled and absorbed" in her memory.
The two watercolor paintings by Weiss in the Fine Arts Collection were donated to the College by William Heintz in 1997 and so are part of the Heintz Collection.
Source of Biography
"Lee Weiss, Watercolorist." Northlight. 9:2 (March/April 1977), 6-13; Weiss, Lee. Lee Weiss, Watercolors. Madison, WI: Winchell Art Publications, 1971; Weiss, Lee., Lee Weiss, Watercolors II the Seventies. Madison, WI: Winchell Art Publications, 1981; Weiss, Lee. Lee Weiss, Watercolors III. Madison, WI: Straus Printing, 1990; Who's Who in American Art. New Providence, NJ: Marquis Who's Who, 2010; www.leeweiss.com