Graphic Designer Lee Forman, Who Promoted Shopping Bags' Beauty and History, Dies

Lee Forman, 59, a graphic designer who formed a museum to highlight the shopping bag as a worthy cultural artifact brimming with images, graphics and colors, died of cancer March 7 at Capital Hospice in Arlington County. She was a resident of McLean.

Mrs. Forman worked for a number of graphic design firms in the 1970s and 1980s before freelancing and then leaving to raise her children. She won awards from the Art Directors Club of Metropolitan Washington in 1981 and 1982.

Some time after that, she began collecting bags. In 1998, The Washington Post wrote an article about her collection: "Bags in a profusion of shapes, sizes and materials plus some items that aren't bags at all but earrings, trash cans, candles, canisters, tissue boxes, cookie jars and other objects made to look like bags."

The collection ranged from a recent Neiman Marcus bag to an 1898 grocery bag commemorating the Battle of Manila Bay.

"Like it or not, people call me the Bag Lady, but I'm not your typical bag lady," she told The Post.

The interviewer noted that Mrs. Forman was wearing "a silver charm around her neck that looks like a tiny shopping bag."

Mrs. Forman designed the official bag for the 2002 National Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington. That year, she and her husband founded the Museum of Bags to house and protect her own collection, which was to grow to more than 6,500 bags and artifacts. It is not yet open to the public but features some of its collection online.

In 2008, the Minneapolis Institute of Arts used several objects from the couple's museum in an exhibition about images of the presidency.

Lee Lavinthal was born in Trenton, N.J., the daughter of a shoe store owner. She was a 1971 graphic design graduate of American University.

Her memberships included the Capital Speakers Club, Woodmont Country Club in Rockville and Friends of Blair House, the president's guest quarters. She was a board member of Temple Rodef Shalom, a reform synagogue in Falls Church.

As a former ambassador of the Women's Center in Vienna, she acted as public spokeswoman and coordinated speaking engagements.

Survivors include her husband of 33 years, Howard Forman of McLean; two children, Grant M. Forman of Ellicott City and Lauren I. Forman of McLean; and a brother.

-- Alexander F. Remington