Lee Jaffe

Lee Jaffe is an American artist, photographer, filmmaker, musician, and producer.

Life and work

Early life

Born in the Bronx to a Jewish family, Jaffe grew up in New York City. Having fulfilled his high school requirements at the age of sixteen, Jaffe left New York to attend Penn State University, where he studied American history and literature, art history, and modern philosophy.

Early films and conceptual art

Jaffe left Penn State at the age of 19, returned briefly to New York where he played harmonica and guitar in various bands, and then picked up suddenly and moved to Brazil. Through the music scene there he was introduced into a circle of friends making experimental films. There he directed such films as the 16 mm film “Nine Ways of Dying”, created in the remote mountains of Brazil. Jaffe became close to the influential Brazilian filmmaker Neville d’Almeida and the artist Hélio Oiticica, with whom he collaborated in the April 1970 exhibition “From Body to Earth” in Belo Horizonte.