June Leaf: Shooting from the Heart September 21, 2025

Every once in awhile while arting we come across a major talent that nether of us had ever heard about. How does this happen? Well, for too many years art history books, museum  retrospectives, articles, etc have focused on either European white males or white males in general. We have been enriched in recent times by museums and galleries opening their eyes, minds, hearts and doors to all. June Leaf if one of those major talent who was blessed with a 75 year career and a long rich life (1929–2024). NYU’s Grey Gallery is now exhibiting a remarkable body of work that revels in the human experience in all its banality and sublimity. Armed with indefatigable energy, an inventive mind, and a wry, closely observing eye, Leaf nimbly navigated the planes of the real and the imagined, holding a mirror up to essential truths while reminding us of our shared humanity. Born in Chicago and trained at the New Bauhaus, Leaf experienced two formative stints in Paris before relocating to New York. The artist’s career took off here in 1968 with her carnivalesque, breakout exhibition Street Dreams at Allan Frumkin Gallery. In the 1970s, living part time in a remote fishing village in Nova Scotia, Canada, Leaf began creating the densely layered drawings and paintings and the expressive tin and wire figurative sculptures for which she is best known. I encourage you to experience her work which is on exhibit thru December 13, 2025.