Barbara Brown Lee

Barbara Brown Lee is a museum educator known for her work with the Milwaukee Art Museum’s education department and programming.

Early life and education Barbara Brown Lee was born to Betty and John Brown. Betty Brown had training as an art teacher and shared her love of art with her children. In March 1949, when her family temporary moved to Racine, Wisconsin, she would take art classes, and eventually volunteer, at the Wustum Museum at the age of 9.

After Barbara Brown Lee graduated from Milwaukee-Downer Seminary in 1958, she attended Pine Manor College for two years.

Career In 1962, Barbara Brown Lee searched for museum positions in New York, including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Legacy programming During her career, Barbara Brown Lee oversaw the development and implementation of educational programming that the Milwaukee Art Museum still facilitates today.

Barbara Brown Lee was involved with the Scholastic Art Awards, a student art competition in Wisconsin. The resulting juried show of student art has been exhibited in the Milwaukee Art Museum since 1976.

Barbara helped to start the Milwaukee Art Museum's Junior Docent School Program in 1977 in partnership with the Golda Meir School.

In the 1980s, Barbara Brown Lee implemented the Satellite Art Program in association with the art program for Milwaukee Public Schools. In this program, students interested in a career in art would come to the Milwaukee Museum of Art every weekday for a semester, which was sometimes extended to a year. Participants in the Satellite Art Program could utilize the Milwaukee Museum of Art's collection to learn skills necessary for a career in art. The program was recognized by the Getty Center for Education in the Arts as an example of Disciplinary Based Art Education.

Publications Brown, Barbara L., Manger, Barbara, & Shannon, John. (2015). JoAnna Poehlmann: Now and Then. Milwaukee, WI: Plumb Press.

Awards WI Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters Fellowship (2008). Wisconsin Visual Art Lifetime Achievement Award presented by Museum of Wisconsin Art, Wisconsin Painters & Sculptors, Inc., and Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters (2008). Outstanding Art Educator Award presented by the Wisconsin Art Education Association (2001).