Last Chance

Lee R. Chesney

Lee Cheney’s consummate love of intaglio printmaking made him one of the most innovative Abstract Expressionists of his time, and a true printmaker's printmaker. Whether using color or limiting his palette to gradations of a single black ink, working in non-representational abstraction or capturing the human or animal body, Chesney’s work displays his constant exploration of technique, playing with depth, texture, and tonality with equal aplomb.

“Last Chance” reveals these qualities in abundance. Evidence of his time at Atelier 17 in 1950s New York is found in the entirety of the composition, reading like a map of an adventure where the artist does not begin with any purpose except to discover. He sees a shape that calls for a line that calls for a series of textures, and the final image becomes a satisfying, dimensional blend of each. Perhaps there can be an interpretation of meaning in the symbols -- or perhaps he was simply feeling in the dark for a shape that inspired him.

Lee R. Chesney was born in Washington, D.C. on June 1, 1920. He studied at the University of Colorado, Boulder with James Boyle, and received his B.F.A. in painting. Chesney continued his studies at the University of Iowa where he worked with Mauricio Lasansky and James Lechay, earning his M.F.A. in printmaking. Further studies took him to Universidad de Michoacan in Mexico where he studied with Alfredo Zalce and to Paris to work at Atelier 17 with Stanley William Hayter.

He taught at the University of Illinois from 1950 to 1967 and was Chairman of Graduate Programs in Painting and Printmaking there. He served as Associate Dean of Fine Arts at the University of Southern California from 1967 to 1972. Lee was Professor of Art and Chairman of Graduate Art Programs at the University of Hawaii, Honolulu from 1972 to 1984 and Professor Emeritus from 1984 to 2016. He was a member of the College Art Association of American and the Society of American Graphic Artists.