Schiff majored in painting at The Art Institute of Chicago. After graduating in 1974 she moved to New York City. The next year she began using a Xerox 6500 color copier as a paintbrush and by 1981 she had completed her first collection of prints titled Seasons, which was acquired by The Metropolitan Museum of Art that same year.[5]
In 1990, Canon USA took notice of Schiff’s work and donated the Canon CLC 500, one of their newest color laser copiers to her studio. Unlike most other color copiers of the time, the Canon CLC 500 was able to use black ink, giving Schiff access to use darker tones in her art. Canon went on to fund her first exhibit using black: The Color of Light and continues to sponsor her.
In 1992, Schiff was commissioned by International Papers, Hammermill brand to endorse archival papers they produced for their laser photocopiers. They sponsored her exhibition Angels & Money which toured around America, going to Dallas, Los Angeles, Atlanta, and Seattle.
In 1993, Columbia Records commissioned 104 portraits of their recording artists for a permanent installation on 3 floors of their executive offices. This project took her until 1995 to complete.[7]
While on commission, Schiff was introduced to Bob Dylan’s manager in 1997, which finally resulted in a contract in 2005 for a limited edition portrait of Dylan. This portrait consisted of 45 images: 15 divergent images of Dylan, 15 icons that reflected his enigmatic persona and 15 illustrated songs using a font designed exclusively by Matthew Carter for the lyrics.[8][9]
References
^"Lesley Schiff". www.whitney.org. Archived from the original on 2019-04-10. Retrieved 2019-04-10.