Lietze, Dolores Sophia (1880-1964)

 Lietze was born in Cincinnati, OH to German immigrants, her father Ernst a teacher of art and mechanical drawing at the Ohio Mechanics Institute. She graduated from the University of Cincinnati, then moved to Chicago sometime around 1904 to pursue her vocation. She exhibited “Still Life” at the Detroit Museum of Art (1903), “Early Morning” and “The Setting Sun” with the Society of Independent Artists (1919), and “The Snow Storm” at Laguna Art Gallery (1925). A 1923 show at the Museum of New Mexico noted how “Portraits that are rugged, still life which is unusual in its treatment and landscape indicate the wide range of Miss Lietze’s ambition” (“The Galleries” 170). She is listed as an employee of the Federal Art Project, but no further information is available. Unfortunately, one of Lietze’s last public records is a 1955 editorial on the financial plight of elderly individuals like her: “One does not have to search far to discover one of these aged persons, cowering in some dreary lodging to which they have been assigned by a relentless fate....These people have played their role in the drama of life; they have made many sacrifices. Now, reduced to penury, they are probably granted a meager benefit....If need be, I apologize for these unpleasant remarks, but they proceed from the depths, for I, too am one of the underprivileged and I feel that the cards are stacked against me.” 

Sources Consulted: “The Galleries in May,” El Palacio 14.11 (1 June 1923): 169-170;Dolores Lietze, “Remember the Elderly,” Cincinnati Enquirer 10 Jan. 1955: 6).

Works in the New Deal Collection at GVCA by Dolores Lietze:

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The Lighter Good Hope
The Lighter Good Hope

A lighter was a type of barge used for unloading ships in shallower harbors; in the early 20th century, the name extended to lighter tugs used to move those unpowered barges. Here, in golden tones and against a wall of clouds, the Good Hope also is depicted as an object of beauty. In the lower portions of Lietze’s painting, both her design and brushstrokes emphasize horizontal strata of road, wharf, water, planks, gunwales and, across the water, another line of vegetation and trees. The more spacious upper portion is reserved for the vertical geometry of mast and rigging.

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