Sadie Lee

b. 1967, UK

Sadie Lee is an award-winning British figurative painter. Her realistic, challenging paintings focus on the representation of women, sexuality, gender and the aging body. Her paintings investigate and identify with the personal politics of vulnerability, defiance and notions of ‘otherness’, with a strong sense of solidarity for her subject. Her distinctive clear, linear style shares much with the heightened realism of German artists such as Rudolf Schlichter and Christian Schad from the Neue Sachlichkeit movement of the 1930s.

She has been selected to show work in many group shows including exhibitions at The ICA, Glasgow Gallery of Modern Art and the Museum of London. Solo shows include the National Portrait Gallery, London, Manchester City Art Gallery, Schwules Museum, Berlin, and the Town Hall Art Gallery, Slovenia. Her 1997 solo exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery ‘A Dying Art: Ladies of the Burlesque’ was a result of winning the prestigious BP Travel Award. Sadie Lee’s paintings are in private collections including those of Oscar-winning costume designer Sandy Powell; Hugh Cornwell, lead singer of seminal Punk band The Stranglers, and the world-renowned American collector Candice B. Groot

Sadie Lee has been awarded Highly Commended for the Young Masters Art Prize 2023 as well as winner of the Young Masters People’s Choice Award 2023.