Barbara Poe Levee
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March 4, 1922
Barbara Poe Levee | |
|---|---|
 Poe Levee at 88 | |
| Born | Barbara Reis March 4, 1922 New York, US |
| Died | September 13, 2013 (aged 91) |
| Known for | Painting; museum benefactor |
| Spouse(s) | (1) James Poe (1943–63); (2) M. C. Levee (?-1972) |
Barbara Poe Levee (1922–2013), born Barbara Reis, was an American surrealist painter, art collector and benefactor.
Poe Levee was born in New York on March 4, 1922. Her parents were among the art connoisseurs and collectors who, in the early 1940s, supported European artists fleeing the Second World War. Her mother, Rebecca, was a painter, and her father, Bernard, a wealthy accountant. Both were avid collectors of modern art, an enthusiasm their daughter came to share. She was educated at the Rudolph Steiner School in New York, the Tyler School of Fine Arts in Philadelphia, and the International School of Geneva, Switzerland. Her education was supplemented with travels with her family throughout Europe during the 1930s.[1][2][3][4]
She became friends with the painter Pegeen Vail, the daughter of Peggy Guggenheim. Other friends in the 1940s included artists such as Luchita Hurtado, Roberto Matta, Wolfgang Paalen, and Robert Motherwell. She studied painting and engraving with Kurt Seligmann. In 1941, Poe Levee went with Motherwell, a fellow student, Matta and the artist Anne Clark to the mountain town of Taxco, in Mexico. They also visited the British surrealist Gordon Onslow Ford, who lived at Lake Pátzcuaro in the state of Michoacán.[1][4]