Biography

With an early interest in art, Allen worked as a Western Union messenger in high school, often stopping at the Des Moines Register to receive advice from the employees of the newspaper's art department. His talent was recognized in local art shows and the art salon of the Iowa State Fair, where he first met Grant Wood, who was to have a major influence on his career. After high school Allen studied briefly at the Cumming School of Art in Des Moines. In 1929 he enrolled in the University of Iowa and attended evening classes with Grant Wood in Cedar Rapids. A fellow art student, Emil G. Bethke, was working at the University's hospital and introduced Allen to the practice of ophthalmic illustration. While at the University he spent weekends at Stone City, continuing his studies with Wood. Wood himself became director of the Midwest District WPA Art Project, leading to several WPA projects that Allen was able to undertake. These included post office murals in Emmetsburg and Onawa, Iowa and the three panels "Breaking the Prairie" in the Iowa State University Library (a collaboration of Lee Allen, Richard Gates, John Hoagland, Thealtus Alberts, Joseph Swan, Holland Foster, and Aurin Lee Hunt under Wood's supervision). In the summer of 1935 he studied fresco technique with Diego Rivera in Mexico. Unsure of his ability to support himself as a conventional artist (and perhaps influenced by his father's unsuccessful efforts in this direction), Allen turned to medical illustration as a primary profession and joined the Department of Ophthalmology at the University of Iowa, where he worked from 1937 until his retirement in 1976. In the course of this second career Allen became one of the nation's foremost medical illustrators. Having educated himself in the anatomy of the eye and in its disorders and diseases, Allen invented a surgical procedure and a lens for the detailed examination of glaucoma patients. He was a pioneer in ophthalmic photography, inventing several instruments to advance this new field. In this capacity he served as president of the Association of Medical Illustrators in 1959 and president of the American Society of Ocularists in 1969. Remarkably, when, after his retirement, his own vision deteriorated from macular degeneration, he documented the process with illustrations in his book The Hole in My Vision: An Artist's View of His Own Macular Degeneration (2000).

Critical Analysis

Both of Allen's Iowa post office murals deal with conservation issues, suggesting that he had a profound interest in this subject. When Allen undertook his career as an ophthalmic illustrator, he resolved to cease formal exhibitions of his paintings, although he did paint portraits for his hospital colleagues. After his retirement he resumed painting, with a focus on regionalist landscapes.

Murals

• Emmetsburg, Iowa - Post Office: Conservation of Wild Life
• Onawa, Iowa - Post Office: Soil Erosion and Control

References

1. Edwin Lee Allen (When Tillage Begins: The Stone City Art Colony and School).
2. Renowned artist Lee Allen dies at 95 (alt.obituaries).
3. When Tillage Begins (Grant Wood Murals).