6 - Traditional Chinese Painting by Honoree Dora Fugh Lee

The name of the painting is “Rain at Dusk."  It is painted in 1969, using Dora's unique style that melds Chinese xieyi style (freehand calligraphy-brush style) with descriptive Western floral still life painting.

Dora Fugh Lee’s name in Chinese is Fu Duoruo. She was born in 1929 in Beijing into the Manchu Fuca clan. Generations of high military officials, royalty, and artists are among Dora’s family lineage, with bonds to both the East and West.

Dora’s watercolor technique combines the controlled freedom of oriental brushwork with a knowledge of western painting, particularly of Post-Impressionist color.

Sometimes her pictures are prettier and livelier than the real thing. In her hands, for instance, a view of Rhodes Tavern and the Treasury Building fence takes on the exotic splendor of Byzantium. 

But even these views are saved from total improbability by the artist's basic tact, her sharp sense of organization and her underlying comprehension of the visual complexities of the city. It is a unique melding of a place and a joyfully romantic spirit.

A Washingtonian for more than 64 years, Dora settled in Washington, DC, with her husband in 1957. She studied under the artist and sculptor Pietro Lazzari. 

In the 1980’s, she taught traditional Chinese painting and calligraphy at the Smithsonian Institution and George Washington University. 

Dora earned over fifty awards in her career. Today, her works are in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, the National Museum of Asian Art (formerly the Freer and Sackler Galleries,) the National Museum of Women in the Arts, the China Institute, the Pearl Buck Foundation, the National Cathedral, and the University of Virginia among other notable institutions.