The Art of Annie Lee 2027 Wall Calendar

"You don't need to see a face to understand emotion," Annie Lee said. "I try to make the movement of the body express the emotion. And people can use their imaginations." So she painted them without any. A tilted head, a hand on a hip, shoulders dropped at the end of a long day. She gave you the posture and let you fill in the rest, which is why people who have never met each other recognize the same aunt, the same sister, the same Sunday in her work.

Twelve of those paintings here. All That Glitters opens the year in a beauty shop, two women in the chairs under a row of round lights, the floor covered in what used to be on their heads. February is Got Lemons, Make Lemonade, a mother and daughter working a mountain of lemons in a kitchen papered with headlines about foreclosures and downsizing. March is Heat of the Beat, three singers on a black stage with the cords trailing behind them. September brings 3 Ladys and their church fans. The rest of the year moves through a grandmother, and a photo album in a red armchair, two girls in sun hats walking a railroad line, a baby in a washtub beside the stove, a woman on her knees at a Singer sewing machine, and a foot washing in white head wraps.

Annie Frances Lee was born March 3, 1935, in Gadsden, Alabama, and raised by a single parent on Chicago's South Side. She won her first art competition at ten and earned a scholarship to Northwestern University out of high school, then turned it down to marry and raise a family. She did not paint again until she was forty. By then she had buried two husbands and was working as chief clerk in the engineering department at Northwestern Railroad, taking art classes at night for eight straight years until she had a master's degree in interdisciplinary arts education from Loyola. One of those mornings she could not make herself get out of bed and go to that job, and she painted it. Blue Monday was a self-portrait. In 1986 she lost her son in a car accident, and while she was grieving, she decided to step out on faith with her talent. She never went back to the railroad. Her work ended up on the walls of The Cosby Show and A Different World and in homes across the country, and when she passed in 2014, she left behind the most recognizable body of work in African American art.

Browse the full Annie Lee collection for prints and more of her work.

Black history facts and milestone dates are printed right in the date blocks, so you can learn something about Our Story almost every day. Annie's own birthday is in there, March 3, alongside Claudette Colvin, Lorraine Hansberry opening A Raisin in the Sun, and the founding of the National Urban League. Birthdays, appointments, and deadlines fit in the daily squares, and adjacent-month mini calendars let you see what is coming without flipping ahead.

The calendar measures 12 x 12 inches closed and opens to 12 x 24 inches on the wall. Premium full-color printing throughout, stapled binding that turns pages cleanly all year. It covers January through December 2027 and marks all major holidays alongside significant dates in African American history.

This is the one people ask for by name. It goes up in kitchens, salons, church offices, and living rooms, and it has been doing that for decades. Give it to your mother, your godmother, a collector who already owns three, or the person who has hung an Annie Lee every January for as long as you can remember. Get yours now while every title is still in stock. It's never too early to start planning 2027.