Dorothy Lawrey Vorhees (1915 – 2004)

Untitled (Modernist Landscape), 1950, watercolor on paper, signed and dated lower right, 21 x 14 inches (image)

SOLD

Dorothy Lowrey Vorhees' Untitled (Modernist Landscape) fits neatly into the mid-century impulse to depict the built landscape through a stylish, fresh set of eyes, as American Scene painters adapted to the new post-war environment. This work likely depicted an image of the St. Louis area, where Vorhees was living in the early 1950s. In it, she used bold strokes of saturated colors, references to Precisionist-oriented ray lines, and flattened perspective to create an original Cubist-influenced work. Vorhees was best known for and reached critical acclaim as a watercolorist, so her firm command of that unforgiving medium is not surprising.

A native of Cleveland, Vorhees first became interested in painting while in high school, where she served as an arts editor. She then enrolled at The Ohio State University where she studied art and education, was a member of Delta Phi Delta, a national art honorary society, and again served as an arts editor. During the mid and late 1930s, she worked as an art instructor in the Eaton Schools, near Dayton Ohio. In 1939, one of her submissions to the Ohio Watercolor Society was selected for an exhibition which traveled throughout the Midwest and Upper South. The show was hosted at the Cincinnati Art Museum and Vorhees entry was published in the Cincinnati Enquirer and in Indiana and Illinois newspapers in connection with venues in those states. Around that time she met and later married in 1941 her husband, Harold, a Mobile Oil executive. Through his career, the Vorhees moved to St. Louis, Kansas City, Chicago, Geneva, and London. Later, the couple moved to New Mexico in 1975. Through all of these moves, Vorhees continued to paint, exhibit, teach and lecture about modern art. She participated in juried exhibitions at the Royal Institute of Watercolor Painters, Federation of British Artists, Royal Society of Woman Artists, Artists of Chelsea, the Lord Mayor's Guild Hall Show, Ohio Watercolor Society, St. Louis Artists Guild, New Mexico Art League, and Western Federation of Water Color Societies, as well as many other venues. She was honored with solo shows in Missouri, England and New Mexico.