Lee Jaffe

Lee Jaffe (born 1950 in the Bronx) is an American artist best known for his large-scale, multimedia historical assemblages and paintings, which he began making in 1983. He is also known as a photographer, filmmaker, musician and producer, and his career has an unusual link to the reggae world through his years with Bob Marley.

Jaffe grew up in New York City in a Jewish family and studied American history and literature, art history and modern philosophy at Penn State University. He left before finishing and spent time in Brazil, where he joined a circle of experimental filmmakers, including Neville d'Almeida, and worked with the artist Hélio Oiticica on the 1970 exhibition "From Body to Earth" in Belo Horizonte. Back in New York he made films with Vito Acconci and Gordon Matta-Clark and took part in the MoMA exhibition "Projects: Pier 18" in 1971.

Between 1972 and 1977 he lived in Jamaica with Bob Marley, touring North America with the Wailers, and he produced Peter Tosh's album Legalize It. From 1983 he devoted himself to painting, exploring marginalization in American history, including the exploitation of Black performers and the fur trade. His work has been shown at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm, the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin and the Ikon Gallery in Birmingham.