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Annie F. Lee (March 3, 1935, Gadsden, Alabama – November 24, 2014, Henderson, NV) is an African-American artist and international icon. At age ten, she won her first art contest and is awarded a free semester of study at the Art Institute of Chicago. Annie has stated that she had the privilege of thriving in the wake of her older brother's success. Her brother Tony was also an excellent artist and well liked at the schools they attended. Annie followed Tony's lead exceptionally well. She continues to get recognition for her artistic abilities throughout her youth. Upon graduating from high school she is offered a full scholarship to study art at Northwestern University. Annie would forgo the art scholarship to attend secretarial school. She is married and has her first child by the age of 18. With no proof of art being a good career path, coupled with the fact that she didn't have her mother's blessings to pursue art as a career, Annie chose the more traditional role of that time. She thrived as a young wife and mother, until her husband dies of cancer shortly into the marriage, leaving her to raise their daughter alone. Annie's 2 year old daughter, Joy, having health issues of her own like her recently deceased father, is hospitalized around this same time. Now widowed with a sick child in the hospital, Annie found herself having to fall back on her secretarial skills to take care of her responsibilities. Art took a back seat to a career as chief clerk at Northwestern Railroad for a substantial period of time. Miss Lee's professional art career span for three solid decades, but didn't start until she was 50 years old. After her children are grown, Annie goes back to college, earning a masters degree from Loyola University in Interdisciplinary Art. She does this by taking night classes while maintaining her job at the railroad and doing some painting on the side. The side jobs are earning her name recognition on the home show circuit and some decent pay. From the exposure that she was receiving working with the home show companies and Annie's dedication to her craft, she was well on her way to greatness. She is suddenly afflicted with a second and more devastating personal tragedy than the lose of her husband; after which she resigns from the railroad and her art career takes off. Her success is bitter sweet from the beginning. The youngest of her two children and only son, Pippie, is killed in a car accident. Annie becomes an international sensation, seemingly overnight, as one of the first African-American artist to render her images as figurines. The figurines are a success and major part of her contribution to the black art world.

Her most famous painting is "Blue Monday", featuring a woman sitting on the side of her bed. Annie's message in this work of art is perfectly expressed in her character's body language. She doesn't have a face; however, the message within the piece is evident. Annie proclaims "Blue Monday" to be her self portrait, but she also believed other women and mothers could relate to it. Annie's deliberate exclusion of facial features on her characters is no reflection of limitations in her range. Offset by her keen attention to details in other areas of her paintings, it takes but a brief observation to understand what Annie is trying to do. Capturing humor and raw emotion at the perfect moment is just as much Annie's trademark as are her characters without faces. Annie very much identified with the experiences of black people [particularly widows and single mothers] in the United States and that was highlighted in her paintings. Annie painted what she knew about. She's loved and embraced by the black community because her portrayal of blacks is with such love and humor; class and style; history and truth that the message resonates universally. Annie entered her professional art career with laser focus. She had the passion, pain, experience, talent, work ethic and message that comes through in her art and sets her apart as an artist. Annie captured her moment from the early 80's up until weeks prior to her passing.