Mel Leipzig

Artist: Mel Leipzig
Having received a scholarship to study art at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, Mel Leipzig went on to study art at The Cooper Union, at Yale University and at Pratt Institute. In 2007, Mel was eleted to membership in the prestigious NATIONAL ACADEMY. Other awards include a Fulbright Traveling Fellowship, the Louis Comfort Tiffany Award, and one of the last individual artists grants from the National Endowment For the Arts (in 1995). Mel has had extensive one man shows over the years at museums and institutions and has been featured at the reopening of the Henoch Gallery in New York City. Among the many museums and institutions in which his works can be found are the White House Collection in Washington, DC, The Whitney Museum, the Yale Art Gallery in New Haven, Ct., the National Endowment for the Arts Gallery, the New Jersey State Museum and the Cooper-Hewitt Museum in New York City.

The critic Jerald Hagarty writes of Leipzig's work, "The appearance of calculated randomness plays against Leipzig's strong rectilinear organization. The interplay is delightful and more, for there are multiple messages here. For instance: opposites not only attract, they also enhance each other. For instance: careful scrutiny of everyday life reveals a secret underlying order."

Mel always used realist drawings as the basis for his paintings. His works, which were described in 1998 at the "Mel Leipzig: A Retrospective" at the New Jersey State Museum as "being filled with vitality and joy of life", are done using a palette which he reduced to four colors: dark blue, dark red, yellow and white. His paintings are done by working directly from life and are a chronicle of a community - his life, family and friends.

These images may be enlarged simply by clicking on them.