Leo Dee

A native of Newark, New Jersey, he achieved first regional and then national prominence for his "incredibly detailed" and realistic silverpoint drawings which conveyed "the softest and most subtle transitions of tonal values.

[4] 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.

[4] 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).

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.

[4] In 1958, Dee was hired to teach life drawing at the Newark School of Fine and Industrial Arts and soon thereafter a collage-drawing of his became the first of his works to be purchased by a major museum.

[4] This piece, Self-Portrait, revealed his skill in the trompe l'oeil technique by means of which he was able to give the appearance of collage by the precise application of very fine lines.

[4] A few years later when Newark Museum showed this drawing along with another called Reflections in White, critics remarked on the "superrealism" which he achieved, his "staggering technical perfection," and an apparent "intense concern for truth and purity.

"[14] Three years later, the New Jersey State Museum displayed twenty-seven of his drawings and two masonite reliefs in a show held in the main gallery.

"[note 6] During the 1980s and 1990s, Dee's drawings appeared in group exhibitions in New Jersey museums and galleries and critics continued to praise their fine draftsmanship and meticulous realism.

Finding human characteristics in a pear or lemon viewing landscapes in a crumpled piece of paper, I try to evoke the feeling that all of nature is one.