June Leaf

June Leaf
June Leaf
Leaf in the early 1990s
Born(1929-08-04)August 4, 1929
Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
DiedJuly 1, 2024(2024-07-01) (aged 94)
New York City, U.S.
EducationRoosevelt University, B.A. 1954 Institute of Design, M.A.
Years active1949–2024
Known forAbstract painting and drawing, kinetic sculpture
Spouse(s)
Joel Press
​
(divorced)​
[1]
​
​
(m. 1975; died 2019)​

June Leaf (August 4, 1929 – July 1, 2024) was an American visual artist known for her abstract allegorical paintings and drawings; she also worked in modernist kinetic sculpture. She was based in New York City, on Bleecker Street in NoHo, and Mabou, Nova Scotia.

Biography

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June Leaf was born on August 4, 1929, in Chicago, Illinois, to Ruth (Ettleson) Leaf and Phillip Leaf.[1][2] She studied ballet and did some modeling,[1] then was enrolled for three months between 1947 and 1948 at the Institute of Design (formerly known as the New Bauhaus),[3] taking classes with artist Hugo Weber.[3][4] She left school and traveled to Paris in 1948, focusing on creating and identifying abstraction and patterns in her work.[3]

In 1954, she returned to the school for her B.A. degree in Art Education from Roosevelt University and the same year her M.A. degree in Art Education at Institute of Design.[5]

Leaf returned to Paris in 1958–1959 with a Fulbright Grant for painting.[5] When she returned, she moved to New York City in 1960.[3]

She married filmmaker and photographer, Robert Frank in 1975.[6][7]

In 2016, the Whitney Museum of American Art held the retrospective exhibition "June Leaf: Thought Is Infinite." In the same year, another retrospective was held at the Edward Thorp Gallery in New York, entitled "June Leaf: A Survey, 1949-Present".[4][6]

Her work is included in many permanent art collections, including the Smithsonian American Art Museum,[2] the Art Institute of Chicago,[8] Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago,[9] Museum of Modern Art (MoMA),[10] and the Minneapolis Institute of Art.[11]

June Leaf died from gastric cancer in Manhattan, on July 1, 2024, at the age of 94.[1]

Works

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Coney Island (1968)

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Created with pen and ink and colored pencil on paper, 4 × 16+7⁄8 in (35.6 × 42.9 cm). June Leaf's 1968 drawing Coney Island is one of her most straightforward images, devoid of the surreal, visionary creatures and places that occupy her creative mind and guide her work. Yet its depiction of a middle-aged couple gazing at an amusement park carousel succinctly encapsulates what her art does: If we envision these protagonists stepping onto the ride, they become an apt metaphor for Leaf's viewers, who similarly must venture into a deeply imagined realm, grounded in real human experience, in which the artist deploys the fantastic to explore the folly of our existence and the possibilities of consciousness.[12]

The Girl with the Hoop (1980)

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Created with acrylic and fiber-tipped pen on paper, 8+1⁄2 × 11 in (21.6 × 27.9 cm). A relatively simple graphite and ink drawing from 2013 of the artist “threading” her eyes with her fingers found Leaf literally drawing a line out of her brain/vision. The sheet revisits a motif developed in Threading the Story through the Eye of a Needle from 1974, in which a hand encapsulates an imagined scene seemingly pulled forth—threaded through—the eye of its creator. The hand joins the head explicitly in these images. Leaf's representations and interpretations of thought as “infinite” seem to be her meditations on imagination's expression in the physical world through the artist's corporeality: ruminations on the creative process. The subject of how the mind's contents become manifest through the artist's hand is addressed further in a series of works representing substances that issue forth from the brain in various ways.[12]

Making # 2 (2014–2015)

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Artist made sewing treadle, wire, copper, thread, 11+1⁄2 x 22 x 19+1⁄2 in. Making #2 includes the sewing machine base. It is entirely fabricated and features a dancing figure, delicately rendered as a wire line drawing within a circular arc that vibrates when the treadle is worked or the wheel connected to it is turned. Leaf possessed made many ingenious devices with triggers or other parts that activate little figures. These beg to be manipulated, evoking the delight of those 19th-century hands-on mechanical animations that seem so magical.[13]

Awards

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Leaf was awarded an Honorary Doctorate, Humane Letters in 1984 from DePaul University and in 1996 from Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (NSCAD).[5] She received many awards including the Distinguished Artists Awards from the Canadian Council in 1984 and a National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) grant in painting in 1989.[5]

Bibliography

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  • Enright, Robert, June Leaf. Benteli, 2006. ISBN 3716513733
  • Leaf, June, Record 1974/1975. Göttingen: Steidl, 2010. ISBN 9783869300511.[14]
  • Leaf, June, Thought Is Infinite. Göttingen: Steidl, 2016. ISBN 3958291023[15]

References

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  1. ^ a b c d Grimes, William (July 3, 2024). "June Leaf, Artist Who Explored the Female Form, Dies at 94". The New York Times. p. B12. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on July 2, 2024. Retrieved July 1, 2024.
  2. ^ a b "June Leaf". Smithsonian American Art Museum. Retrieved 2018-01-04.
  3. ^ a b c d "Beer with a Painter: June Leaf". Hyperallergic. 2016-04-23. Archived from the original on 2018-01-04. Retrieved 2018-01-04.
  4. ^ a b "June Leaf: Thought Is Infinite". Whitney Museum of American Art. 2016-04-01. Archived from the original on 2018-01-05. Retrieved 2018-01-04.
  5. ^ a b c d "June Leaf Biography". artnet. Archived from the original on 2018-01-07. Retrieved 2018-01-04.
  6. ^ a b Feitelberg, Rosemary (2016-06-17). "June Leaf Discusses Art, Whitney Show and Living With Photographer Robert Frank". WWD. Archived from the original on 2017-11-22. Retrieved 2018-01-04.
  7. ^ Dawidoff, Nicholas (2015-07-02). "The Man Who Saw America". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on 2015-09-05. Retrieved 2018-01-04.
  8. ^ "Leaf, June". The Art Institute of Chicago. Archived from the original on 2018-01-04. Retrieved 2018-01-04.
  9. ^ "MCA Collection: June Leaf, Arcade Women, 1956". Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. Archived from the original on 2018-01-05. Retrieved 2018-01-04.
  10. ^ "June Leaf". The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). Archived from the original on 2018-01-04. Retrieved 2018-01-04.
  11. ^ "The Salon by June Leaf". Minneapolis Institute of Art. Archived from the original on 2018-01-04. Retrieved 2018-01-04.
  12. ^ a b "June Leaf: Thought Is Infinite". whitney.org. Archived from the original on 2019-03-29. Retrieved 2019-03-29.
  13. ^ Berlind, Robert (2015-06-03). "June Leaf". The Brooklyn Rail. Retrieved 2019-03-29.
  14. ^ Hunter, Becky (2010-07-01). "July 2010: Book Review: June Leaf, Record 1974/1975 and Critical Communities, RITE". WhiteHot Magazine. Archived from the original on 2016-05-29. Retrieved 2018-01-04.
  15. ^ Leaf, June (2016). Thought Is Infinite (Google Books). Steidl. ISBN 9783958291027.
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