Gallery Henoch

The unveiling of 24 new paintings by Mel Leipzig was the center of celebration at Gallery Henoch, last night, Thursday, March 27th.  A crowd of several hundred admires lined the sidewalk to gain entry in order to mingled in the 2,700sqr foot gallery, meet the artist and view paintings measuring as long as twelve feet.  The two-dozen paintings (34 total canvases) were selected by Margaret M. O'Reilly, Curator of Fine Art at the New Jersey State Museum and represent a fraction of the actual work painted over the last four years, from 2010 - 2014.  Leipzig paints people in their personal environments.  His subjects might include a fry-cook in his kitchen, a tattoo piercer or a famous politician.  Viewed in their own homes and offices, his subjects are surrounded by the stuff of their daily life.  The exhibition runs through April 19that Gallery Henoch. Admission is free and open to the public. This marks Leipzig's seventh solo exhibition at Gallery Henoch that has represented the artist for 30 years.  Mel Leipzig was born in Brooklyn in 1935 and resides in Trenton, NJ where he was a professor of Painting and Art History at Mercer County Community College until 2013.  He studied at the Cooper Union and at Yale, with Joseph Albers and Neil Welliver. The latter encouraged Leipzig at a time when abstraction dominated the visual arts. Leipzig has had over 45 one-man shows at museums and art centers in Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, Massachusetts and New Jersey. He has had multiple exhibits at the New Jersey State Museum.  National Academy of Arts and Letters honored him in 2003. Shortly after he was elected into the National Academy in 2006.  In 2013 PBS and NJN began airing a documentary about the artist titled MEL LEIPZIG: EVERYTHING IS PAINTABLE. His works are in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, the National Academy Museum and the Cooper Hewitt Museum in New York City.  Additionally, New Jersey State Museum, Montclair Art Museum, the Morris Museum, the Noyes Museum, the Jane Voorhes Zimmerli Museum at Rutgers and the Jersey City Museum.  "His sense of Mysterious emotional tension in strongly characterized ordinary people makes him perhaps, the Chekhov of Trenton." - Peter Schjeldahl, New York Times Notable persons in attendance include: US Representative Rush Holt, artist Audrey Flack, NJM Curator of Fine Art Margaret O'Reilly, photographer of Warhol: John Naar, Star Ledger Editors: Dan Bischoff & Enrique Lavin, painters: Alex Kanevsky, Daniel Greene & Wendy Caporelli. Printmaker Judy Brodsky, and Michael Curtis, Art Critic Gerry Haggerty, Gallerist George Henoch Shechtman, Sheryl Fisher, Andrew Liss, Michael Childs, Irina Arnot, young artists from SVA, NY Studio School, the National Academy of Design, the Arts Students League, and Mercer County Community College also showed their support of the 78 year old painter. MEL LEIPZIG: PAINTINGS 2010 - 2014, THRU APRIL 19, 2014 @ Gallery Henoch, 555 West 25th Street (between 10th & 11th Ave).  Subway: C or E to 23rd St.  The event is free and open to the public. Gallery Hours: Tuesday - Saturday, 10:30 am - 6:00 pm or by appointment. For more information, please contact Andrew Liss at 917.305.0003. ###

Exhibition VIP Preview Mel Leipzig & US Representative Rush Holt Alex Kanevsky & Hollis Heichmere @ Henoch

Mel Leipzig At 78 years old, Mel Leipzig hustles a four-foot canvas out of his white van and sets up for the day's project; he is painting a young female tattoo artist in her shop.  This marks the first of 8 weekly visits he will make before the canvas is ready to exhibit. On Thursday, March 27th, Gallery Henoch opens a four-week exhibition of Mr. Leipzig's portraits.  Margaret O'Reilly, Curator of Fine Art at the New Jersey State Museum, selected the 24 paintings to be exhibited at Gallery Henoch thru April 19, 2014.  Art critic Dan Bischoff notes: "For more than four decades Mel has stood in Trenton, New Jersey and painted the worlds around him: Fast cooks in their diners, jacketed waiters among their tables, students at the college where he taught for nearly half a century, fellow artists in their studios.  Leipzig is a portraitist, but he doesn't just produce recognizable likenesses.  He paints, as artist Carl Hazlewood once put it, "rooms" - all the stuff that makes up a person's home or workplace.  More often than not, that makes a truer portrait than the subject's physiognomy." Homage to Neil Welliver, Acrylic on Canvas, 48" x 48" "Each Painting Has a Story" This is a homage to Neil Welliver (1929-2006), one of America's great landscape painters. The Welliver painting is part of the permanent collection of the New Jersey State Museum in Trenton. One of my paintings hangs to the right of the Welliver and above to the left is a drawing by April Gornik. Seated by the Welliver is Margaret O'Reilly, Curator of Fine Arts at the New Jersey State Museum. Francesca, VIncent & Leonardo, Cape Cod Trees, Acrylic on canvas, 48" x 48"

In recent years the artist has begun to make diptychs and triptychs of his subjects. Leipzig will paint multiple locations that reference the subject, giving the viewer greater insight into their world. In the portrait of RUSH HOLT AND MARGARET LANCEFIELD, a triptych, the center panel shows the politician & wife at home. The two outside panels show a pristinely organized New Jersey office counterweighted by a slightly chaotic desk in Washington, DC. RUSH HOLT, Acrylic on Canvas, 48" x 144" "His sense of Mysterious emotional tension in strongly characterized ordinary people makes him perhaps, the Chekhov of Trenton." - Peter Schjeldahl, New York Times ..."One of the most individual American portrait painters of his generation. Indeed, he is among the very few artists of our current scene who seems to have the ability to say something new and interesting about the familiar and over familiar subject of informal portraiture." - Victoria Donoho, The Philadelphia Enquirer Gallery Henoch, 555 West 25th Street (between 10th & 11th Ave). Subway: C or E to 23rd St. The event is free and open to the public. Gallery Hours: Tuesday - Saturday, 10:30 am - 6:00 pm or by appointment. For more information, please contact Andrew Liss at 917.305.0003. ***

U P C O M I N G     E X H I B I T I O N S April 11 - 13, 2014 Preview Galla, April 10th

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