Lee Edwards

Lee Edwards is an artist working in Duarte, California. His landscapes and cactus paintings are gaining recognition in exhibitions around Southern California. Born in East Los Angeles in 1949, at the age of 7 he moved with his family to Dalton, Georgia where he began his interest in art. A local interior designer and architect named Marjorie Rhodes and her husband Travis, a textile designer, encouraged Lee in his drawing and painting. They built a community arts center out of an old fire station.

 Formal art studies began at the University of Wisconsin, Madison in 1969 where Mr. Edwards was an assistant to the British photo-realist painter Malcolm Morley who was artist in residence. After a summer touring the art museums of Europe, Mr. Edwards continued his studies at the Dayton Art Institute in Ohio. He took many studio classes in fine art including daily classes in life drawing, ceramics and sculpture, working in mediums of terracotta, steel welding, and casting in aluminum and bronze. Oil painting classes at the institute concentrated on abstract expressionism and color-field styles popular at the time. His paintings from that period were similar to the styles of Jackson Pollack and Kenneth Noland. After a year at the Dayton Art Institute, Mr. Edwards completed a B.A. degree in fine art at La Sierra University in Riverside, California where he gave his first one-man show of paintings. He went on to earn an M.F.A. degree in Cinema at USC in 1974 and then settled in the Los Angeles area where he worked in documentary film as an Emmy award-winning writer and editor. 

  After a transition from film back to painting, Lee joined the California Art Club. His plein air sketches in oil and studio landscapes continue the tradition of realistic landscape painting.

Recent paintings have been created in the San Gabriel river area with views of Mt. Baldy and the San Gabriel mountain range, and, a series of cactus close ups in their natural environment. Recent exhibitions include a one-man show at the Claremont Forum Gallery in Claremont, California. Upcoming exhibition will be a juried group show titled "Art Matters" at the Huntington Library and Botanical Gardens.