May Bridges Lee
{{Short description|English portrait painter (1884–1977)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
File:May Bridges Lee in 1936.jpg
May Bridges Lee (1884-1977), later Lady Stott, was an English portrait painter.{{cite web |title=May Bridges Lee (1884-1977) |url=https://artuk.org/discover/artists/lee-may-bridges-18841977 |publisher=Art UK |access-date=1 May 2019}}
Lee's portraits of civic and other dignitaries are held in several public collections. Her Henry Tyler hangs in the Royal London Hospital for Integrated Medicine, successor to the London Homeopathic Hospital of which he was a benefactor,{{cite web |title=Henry Tyler |url=https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/henry-tyler-124100 |publisher=Art UK |access-date=1 May 2019}} while her work described as Charles Leonard Arnold (1885–1969), Inventor of the Three Pinned Safety Socket, Chairman and Founder of M. K. Electric Ltd is held by the University of Bristol, donated by the sitter's grand-daughter.{{cite web |title=Charles Leonard Arnold (1885–1969), Inventor of the Three Pinned Safety Socket, Chairman and Founder of M. K. Electric Ltd |url=https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/charles-leonard-arnold-18851969-inventor-of-the-three-pinned-safety-socket-chairman-and-founder-of-m-k-electric-ltd-185227/search/actor:lee-may-bridges-18841977/page/1/view_as/grid |publisher=Art UK |access-date=1 May 2019}} In 1972 she donated a collection of her miniatures and full-size works to Nuneaton Museum & Art Gallery.{{cite news |last1=Chamberlain |first1=Julie |title=Look: Miniature art work on show at Nuneaton Museum and Art Gallery |url=https://www.coventrytelegraph.net/whats-on/whats-on-news/miniature-art-work-show-nuneaton-8404596 |access-date=1 May 2019 |work=CoventryLive |date=8 January 2015}}
Lee was a full member of the Royal Miniature Society and her Portrait of my Father is exhibited in the society's Diploma Collection.{{cite web |title=Diploma Collection |url=http://royal-miniature-society.org.uk/diploma-collection.html |publisher=Royal Miniature Society |access-date=1 May 2019}}{{cite web |title=Portrait of my Father by Miss May B Lee (Lady Stott) |url=http://royal-miniature-society.org.uk/archive-collection-portrait-of-my-father-by-miss-may-b-lee-lady-stott.html |website=Diploma Collection Gallery |publisher=Royal Miniature Society |access-date=1 May 2019}} She also exhibited at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool and with both the Society of Women Artists and the Society of Miniaturists, at the Royal Academy, the Royal Scottish Academy and at the Paris Salon where she received an Honourable Mention in 1950.{{cite book|author=Grant M. Waters|publisher=Eastbourne Fine Art|year=1975|title=Dictionary of British Artists Working 1900–1950}} Her portrait subjects included Sir Jeremiah Colman, Lord Burnham, Lord Cornwallis and the Earl Manvers.{{cite book|author=David Buckman|publisher=Art Dictionaries Ltd|year=2006|title=Artists in Britain Since 1945 Vol 1, A to L |ISBN=0 953260 95 X}}
Personal life
Lee was born in 1884 in Lahore, which was then in India. Her father John Bridges Lee was a barrister in the High Courts of Calcutta, Allahabad and Lahore, and her mother was an artist. Her mother died when she was seven, and she was sent to school in England; her father then had financial troubles which meant she had to leave school aged 15. She started to earn her living by painting, copying old masters onto ivory for snuff box lids, and studied in the evenings at the Lambeth School of Art.{{cite web |title=Life in Miniature |url=https://nuneatonmuseum.wordpress.com/2016/11/15/life-in-miniature/ |website=Behind the scenes at the museum |publisher=Nuneaton Museum & Gallery |access-date=1 May 2019 |date=15 November 2016}}
Lee married engineer and architect Sir Philip Sidney Stott (1858-1937) on 2 January 1936, and was thereafter Lady Stott.{{cite news |title=Sir Philip Stott Married |work=Citizen (Gloucester) |date=3 January 1936 |page=6 | via=British Library Newspapers}} She continued to maintain a studio in London after her marriage.
References
{{reflist}}
External links
- {{Art UK bio}}; including two self-portraits
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Category:20th-century English painters
Category:English portrait painters