GYPSY ROSE LEE

Seattle, Washington, 1911 — Los Angeles, California, 1970

Born Rose Louise Hovick in Seattle, Washington, in January 1911, Gypsy Rose Lee was by far the most publicly celebrated figure among the artists of Peggy Guggenheim's Exhibition by 31 Women — and also the most anomalous. Known internationally as the consummate burlesque performer who had elevated striptease into an art of wit, irony, and theatrical intelligence, Lee was also, by the early 1940s, a serious writer, an acute collector, and a self-taught visual artist whose work deserves to be considered on its own terms.

Her entry into the fine arts circle came through her relationship with Max Ernst, whom she collected before he was widely fashionable and who painted a celebrated portrait of her in 1941. Her collecting instincts were remarkably prescient: she was reportedly the first buyer of a Dorothea Tanning painting, and assembled a collection that included works by Miró, Picasso, Chagall, Joseph Cornell, and a Degas bronze — many reportedly gifts from the artists themselves, a testament to the depth of her avant-garde relationships. She attended gatherings at Ernst and Guggenheim's home, visiting along with Marcel Duchamp, W.H. Auden, Benjamin Britten, and Carson McCullers. Her friendships with fellow 31 Women artists Buffie Johnson, Hazel McKinley, and Tanning were sustained and artistically engaged.

Her own visual practice encompassed painting and collage. In Exhibition by 31 Women (1943) she exhibited a collage titled Self-Portrait (1942), and she returned for Guggenheim's second show, The Women (1945). Her painting Untitled (Bowl of Breasts) (c. 1948–52), made for her husband, the Spanish painter Julio de Diego, was for years among the most sought-after missing works in The 31 Women Collection. Its recovery is a recent story: collector Jenna Segal, having assembled works by all thirty other artists in the exhibition, acquired Lee's painting just two weeks before the opening of 31 Mujeres at Fundación MAPFRE, Madrid (2024–25) after a years-long search Segal described as "like a striptease." The painting was also exhibited in 31 Mulheres at MAC/CCB, Lisbon (2025).

Work by Gypsy Rose Lee is maintained as part of the 31 Women Collection to preserve the legacy of the first all-women's exhibition in the United States on record and to maintain Lee's contributions in the record of art history.