Lee graduated from Rockford College and then studied with Ernest Lawson at the Kansas City Art Institute. After visiting Europe, she attended the California School of Fine Arts where she learned to paint from nature. She moved to Woodstock, New York in 1931 and became a well known figure in the artists' colony there, working with Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Peggy Bacon and Leon Kroll. In 1935 one of her whimsical, anecdotal paintings of American life won the Logan Medal and the Art Institute of Chicago. The Institute's acquisition of that work established Lee's reputation and encouraged important commissions and acquisitions by other major institutions. Bathers shows a debt to Avery who was a fellow Woodstocker and close friend.