Spike Lee

Spike Lee
Born 27 Mar 1957

2017 Portrait of a Nation Prize Recipient

Born Atlanta, Georgia

Spike Lee is an innovative and provocative filmmaker with no qualms about confronting hot-button issues of race and class in his feature films and documentaries. In 1986, he scored an indie hit with his first full-length motion picture, She’s Gotta Have It. Written, directed, and produced by Lee (who also played one of its characters), the film was shot in under two weeks on a budget of $175,000 and earned more than $7 million at the box office. Having received wide critical acclaim since the 1980s for his original, pioneering work, Lee has since brought varied projects to the screen, including Do the Right Thing (1989), Malcolm X (1992), and Bamboozled (2000). His probing documentaries include 4 Little Girls (1997), an examination of the 1963 bombing of Birmingham’s 16th Street Baptist Church, and When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts (2006), a study of Hurricane Katrina’s devastating impact on New Orleans and the federal government’s inadequate response to the tragedy.

Credit: National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of the artist; 2017 Portrait of a Nation Prize Recipient