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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.
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Exhibition VIP Preview
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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.
"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.
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