Bernice Lee Boeschenstein

Bernice Lee Boeschenstein was born March 19, 1906, in Louisburg, Kansas, the daughter of Floyd Brown Lee, a college professor at Hays State College, and Lillie Lee McDowell. Her path toward a career in art began at a young age, when she won a poster design contest in 1918. She attended Kansas State College, where she studied under Henrietta Murdock, from 1923-1926, and the University of Illinois from 1926-1928, and also took summer courses at the Art Institute of Chicago.

Before moving to St. Louis, Boeschenstein taught art in public schools in Kansas and Oklahoma. In 1936, she entered the St. Louis School of Fine Arts and studied under Fred Conway. As a student, Boeschenstein was inspired by the City Art Museum and its collection of Impressionist and contemporary pieces, which pushed her work toward abstraction. She claimed to be influenced by Paul Klee, Pablo Picasso, Diego Rivera, and the watercolorist John Marin. She was also an admirer of the Bauhaus and began a correspondence with former Bauhaus instructor Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, who encouraged her explorations in painting on glass.

In her mature work, Boeschenstein developed a characteristic technique of scratching through applied paint to the surface of the canvas to produce light, delicate lines. Boeschenstein exhibited widely in the American Midwest, including shows at the City Art Museum (1937, 1939-1942), the Kansas City Art Institute (1938), the Wichita Art Museum (1940), The Art Institute of Chicago (1941), the Detroit Institute of Art (1949), and the Denver Art Museum (1949). She received an honorable mention and an Anonymous Purchase Prize at the first Missouri Exhibition at the City Art Museum in 1941.

Boeschenstein surrounded herself with other progressive artists. She was a member of the St. Louis Artists' Guild and Group 15, a St. Louis collective that included her former teacher, Fred Conway, and former classmate Belle Cramer.

Boeschenstein died of lung cancer in 1951, near the height of her career. The Group 15 Tenth Anniversary Show, held at the City Art Museum, was dedicated in her honor.