Russell Lee

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Russell Werner Lee was born on July 21, 1903 in Ottawa, Illinois. He graduated from Culver Military Academy in 1921 and pursued a degree in chemical engineering from Lehigh University in Pennsylvania, graduating in 1925. He purchased his first camera in 1935 to aid him in painting and draftsmanship and never picked up a paintbrush again. In the fall of 1936, Lee joined the photographic staff of the Resettlement Administration (RA), which was renamed the Farm Security Administration (FSA) in 1937. Both the RA and the FSA were New Deal programs created to assist poor and destitute farmers during the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression. During his tenure with the FSA, Russell Lee crisscrossed the United States, documenting rural and urban communities and leaving a legacy of over 70,000 negatives. In the years following World War II until the mid-1960s, Russell Lee photographed extensively in his new home state of Texas. Concurrent with his work for Standard Oil and J&L Steel, he contributed to magazines such as Fortune, and The New York Times Magazine, and was an associate staff member of Magnum. His work also appeared frequently in The Texas Observer. Lee was the first photography professor at the University of Texas where he taught from 1965 to 1973. Russell Lee died on August 28, 1986. 

The Russell Lee Collection at the Wittliff Collections represents the full range of Lee’s career and includes photographs, paintings, manuscripts and artifacts, such as camera’s. For a complete biographical outline and to search for photographs by Russell Lee, access the Russell Lee Collection website. For a descriptive list of holdings at The Wittliff, access the Russell Lee finding aid.