Russell Lee

In 1927 Russell Lee married painter Doris Emrick and soon began painting. Shortly thereafter the two moved to a small artist's community in Woodstock, NY. Over the next few years Russell Lee struggled with painting and in 1935 he bought a camera to try to help him visually. He fell in love with photography. 

During his stay in Woodstock, Russell Lee began taking photographs that reflected his concerns for the struggling working class. In 1936 he became interested in a group of photographers in Washington D.C. that were doing socially documentary work. As a result, Russell Lee met with Roy Stryker, the director of the photography project for the Farm Security Administration (FSA). Stryker hired Lee as well as Walker Evans, Dorthea Lange, Arthur Rothstein, and others to create a body of propaganda photographs to document the success of federal rural relief projects. Soon Russell Lee was photographing throughout the Midwest for the FSA documenting the plight of farmers through the Great Depression and droughts of the 1930s. In the midst of all of his traveling, Russell Lee's marriage to Doris ended and in 1938 he met and married newspaper reporter Jean Smith. They began working together, Russell Lee taking the photographs and Jean writing short essays about the images. By 1940 Russell Lee was known as one of the best photographers working for the FSA. 

During the next several years Russell Lee, like many FSA photographers, helped the government with the war effort by taking photographs for the Air Transport Command. When the war ended Russell Lee took a short break and then did some more work for the government photographing the conditions of the coal miners in the Rocky Mountains and Appalachia. Between 200 and 300 of Russell Lee's images were used in the fight to clean up the coal industry. In 1947 Roy Stryker contacted Russell Lee about taking some industrial photographs for a project he was developing for Standard Oil of New Jersey. Russell Lee's images concentrated on how oil and it's products related to peoples everyday lives. Over the next several years Russell Lee focused on industrial photography. In 1965 he began teaching at the University of Texas and this remained one of his passions until he retired in 1973.