Henry Lee McFee was born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1886. Between 1902 and 1905 McFee attended the Kemper Military Academy. In 1907, he received a large inheritance allowing him to paint full-time. In the Fall of that year, he enrolled in the Stevenson Art School for one year. Although McFee intended to study art in New York City, he spent two summers attending classes at the Art Students League in Woodstock, New York, studying under Birge Harrison. In November of 1913, McFee exhibited six works at the MacDowell Club, and in 1920 his work was shown at the Gallerie Georges Petit's International Art Exhibition in Paris. McFee's his first one-man show was in 1927 at the Rehn Gallery, where he continued exhibiting into the 1940's. McFee was married to Aileen Fletcher Jones from approximately 1916 until 1936 when he eloped to Savannah with her niece, Eleanor Brown Gutsell. In 1939 McFee was appointed Director at the Witte Museum School of Art, which was sponsored by the San Antonio Art League, and in 1940-1941 he held positions at the Claremont College and Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles, California.

Biography courtesy of The Caldwell Gallery, www.antiquesandfineart.com/caldwell