Lee Sievan

Born Lina Gertrude Culik on the Lower East Side of New York, photographer Lee Sievan contributed significantly to the documentation of her city in the mid-twentieth century. Sievan began as a self-taught photographer, later taking courses at the American Artists School and the New School for Social Research. A member of New York’s Photo League, Sievan primarily portrayed the everyday people and sights she encountered while walking the city. She also made portraits of a number of prominent artists, including Barnett Newman, Robert Motherwell, and Mark Rothko, whom she met through her husband, the painter Maurice Sievan. Toward the end of her career, Sievan worked as a librarian and archivist at the International Center of Photography. Her photographs were exhibited alongside her husband’s paintings in a 1997 exhibition at the Museum of the City of New York.