John Lees is an American contemporary expressionist artist who works primarily in painting. Lees was born in 1943 in Denville, NJ. He received his BFA and MFA from the Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles, CA. He lives and works in upstate New York. Lees is the recipient of numerous awards and grants, including the American Academy of Arts and Letters’ Hassam, Speicher, Betts, and Symons Purchase Fund Award; the Francis J. Greenburger Award; the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Grant; and the National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship Grant.
He also served as an art professor for 40 years at the New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture (1988–2011), the School of Visual Arts (1987–2005), Sarah Lawrence College (2000–2003), State University of New York at New Paltz (1996–2000), and Mt. San Antonio College (1971–1981).
