Lee MacLeod was born in Los Angeles California in 1953. He attended Colorado College and graduated in 1976. He began studying at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California in 1977. He completed his course work in 1980 and began his art career as an illustrator. His most visible projects were the final advertising art for the films “Batman”, “Howard The Duck”, and “Pocahontas”. As an illustrator he won a Hollywood Reporter Key Art Award for the “Howard The Duck” painting in 1987 and again in 1990 for the painting for Tim Burton’s “Batman”. Lee won a gold medal for his illustration for The Los Angeles County Fair from the Los Angeles Society of Illustrators in 1987.
Lee MacLeod currently lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He is a member of the Oil Painters of America, the California Art Club, Plein Air Painters Of New Mexico, Plein Air Artists of Colorado, American Impressionist Society, and the Laguna Plein Air Painters Association. He has exhibited in the juried national shows of all of these organizations. He participated in the Torrey Pines Plein Air Invitational in 2008, and the Paint the Rockies Plein Air Invitational in 2011, 2013, 2014, 2019, 2022 and has been invited back for 2025. In 2023, Lee was invited to participate in The Sonoma Plein Air Festival. He was a field instructor at the Plein Air Convention in Santa Fe in April 2018. Twelve of his paintings were chosen for the 2018 New Mexico Magazine Artist Calendar.
Awards of note:
Best Of Artist Members, PAPNM’s 7th National Juried Members Exhibition, 2015
Best of Artist Members, PAPNM’s 10th National Juried Members Exhibition, 2018
First Place, Santa Fe Plein Air Fiesta, 2018
Best In Show, PAPNM’s 12Th National Juried Member’s Exhibition, 2020
Best of Show, PAPNM’s 15th Annual National Juried Members Exhibition, 2023
OPA Exhibitions of note:
Oil Painters of America’s 21st National Exhibition of Traditional Oils, Evergreen, Colorado, 2012
Oil Painter’s of America’s Western Regional Exhibition, Topeka, Kansas, 2013
Oil Painters of America’s Western Regional Exhibition, Santa Fe, New Mexico, 2019
Oil Painters of America’s 31st National Exhibition of Traditional Oils, Steamboat, Colorado, 2022
Oil Painters od America’s Western Regional Exhibition, Prescott, AZ, 2024