Mel Leipzig and Friends

Mel Leipzig is a contemporary artist known for his portraits featuring American artists in their studios, including notable Cape Cod artists such as Carmen Cicero, Selina Trieff, Robert Henry, and Chip and Jean Fogg-Brock.

His portraits are rendered with just four colors and black, resulting in rich and dramatic scenes. This exhibition will feature these portraits alongside the work of the subjects themselves to create an atmosphere of connection and intimacy.

FROM THE CURATOR

I was introduced to Mel Leipzig’s work in 2015 by the Art Complex Museum’s painting instructor, Laura Tryon Jennings. At that time Mel was in his mid eighty’s and still painting every day. I visit a lot of artist studios as part of my job and was immediately interested in what Mel was doing; visiting artists in their studios and painting them there, from life. I thought that showing Mel’s studio pieces along with the artist’s work would make a very interesting show and it certainly did. Some of the artists I knew, some I had shown before but mostly they were new to me and the museum which worked just fine. We exhibited Mel’s work and that of 8 of his very accomplished “friends” in 2017.  This exhibition is an expansion of that.

Leipzig paints with primary colors and black. He paints entirely free-hand, without any under drawing or studies. His paintings distort perspective in a way that renders character. His backgrounds swirl around the artists in their studios, providing at once a glimpse of their inner sanctum with a dizzying diary of underlying personal clues. 

Leipzig was elected to the National Academy in 2006 and has work in the Whitney Museum, the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, and the New Jersey State Museum, as well as in many private collections. Artists in the exhibition include Chip Brock, Jean Fogg-Brock, Carmen Cicero, Lois Dodd, Dan Finaldi, Deborah Forman, Richard Henry, Laura Tryon Jennings, Linda Pochesci, George Nick, Thomas Smith and Selina Trieff. 

Craig Bloodgood
Contemporary Curator, Art Complex Museum

Image: Mel Leipzig, Dan Painting Francesca, Cape Cod, 2017, Acrylic on canvas