This biography from the Archives of AskART:
|  Louise "Lee" Langenohl Chubb was born in Saint Louis in 1904. Her father was August Langenohl, a percussionist with the Saint Louis Symphony. Chubb became a jazz enthusiast as the genre was being born in the city. Some of her most popular compositions are of jazz ensembles.
Chubb received a Bachelor's degree in General Education from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1928. She then commenced a 20-plus year career teaching history and biology in Saint Louis public schools. In 1941 she began designing and creating candles. Their popularity resulted in a successful commercial endeavor. Jaccard's and the Minna Elman Gallery in Saint Louis and America House in New York contracted with Chubb for many years.
In the late 1940s Chubb was being courted by Saint Louis businessman John Byrne when he died suddenly in a plane crash. Subsequently she dated and was to marry Washington University psychiatry professor Dr. E. Van Norman Emery. In March of 1953, he too died suddenly. Chubb, given pause, packed her textbooks and went to Elsah, Illinois on the Mississippi River for the summer. According to a friend, she had resolved to become an outstanding biology teacher. At a concert that summer Chubb met St. Louis attorney R. Walston Chubb. They married in December 1953. Chubb retired from teaching and established her candle-making shop in the basement of her new home. Enthralled with natural light and shadows, for years she continued to design candles.
Chubb traveled extensively with her husband in the 1950s. They journeyed to Mexico, Guatemala, Greece, Paris, London, Israel, Africa, Manhattan, and Arizona. Mayan Indian artists influenced many of her compositions, as did Greek Orthodox architecture. The two were also avid outdoors people. They owned a canoe and enjoyed float trips on Missouri rivers. Summers were spent at their cabin in the woods overlooking Lake Michigan.
The second floor bedroom of Chubb's home became a sunny studio, soon filled with her oils, canvases, pens, gum erasers, frames, easel, rollers, a jigsaw, egg cartons, piles of art magazines and Architectural Digest, and card and camping tables splattered with paint and glue. In 1957 Chubb's husband wrote to his sister:
You are exceptional in recognizing the wisdom of some regular occupation, however ungainful it may be. Lee was jealous, but as a matter of fact she has joined in an informal class for dabblers under a very eminent painter at the [Saint Louis Art] Museum. She dabbles quite a bit on her own, and the house is made lively and interesting by her efforts. I would say she belongs to the "imaginative representational neo-modern school."
In addition to traveling, Chubb and her husband were active on behalf of civil rights organizations, desegregation, the Presidential campaign for Eugene McCarthy, and the environment. (Politically astute since childhood, Chubb recalled dressing up her dolls in suffragette clothing and lining them up for a parade in imitation of contemporary parades supporting women's right to vote.)
Over a 20 year period Chubb composed an extraordinary number of Abstract Expressionist works. Her husband died in 1977, which began a brief hiatus. In the 1980s Emily Ann Cramer, daughter-in-law of Belle Cramer, introduced Chubb to print making. When a spot subsequently opened up in Saint Louisan Elizabeth Cohen's print making studio, Chubb joined it. Blending prints with collage, Chubb produced monographs and collographs that heralded a new era in her work.
Chubb's style reflects her valuation of those who struck out on their own, from Picasso to jazz singers, and a rejection of the commercialism that seemed to smother substance, as seen in her later prints including her award winning "No Turkeys" (c. 1981).
In addition to her early jazz ensemble and later print studies, Chubb's most popular works are landscapes, portraits, and city skylines. These are striking for their bold colors and architectural forms. Her works have appeared in some 50 juried shows since the 1960s. In 2002 a number of her sculptures and paintings were exhibited at the Sheldon Art Galleries in "Lee Chubb: A Retrospective." Twelve of the artist's works, including a self-portrait, "The Amateur Changes her Style," hang in the Saint Louis University Museum of Art.
Source:
Ailan Chubb, Granddaughter of the Artist. Submitted December 2004.
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