Jim Leedy: Retrospective by Chris Garcia | Credits |
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| As the ceramic arts progress into a new millennium, artists and historians are studying the innovators in the medium who helped forge the style of art in the 20th century. One of the top names on the list is Jim Leedy.
Leedy's work was featured recently in a retrospective exhibit at the Albrecht-Kemper Museum of Art in St. Joseph, Missouri. The interesting quality of this show was the breadth of work Leedy has produced in a lifetime. Among the familiar totem-like ceramic sculptures were combined-media paintings, oil portraiture, and commercial illustrations. The exhibit, mostly curated from Leedy's own collection, demonstrates the diversity of interests, as well as the constant evolving that a vital artist goes through. Viewers could see his earliest efforts in a photo-realistic portrait of his parents, which he did after learning to paint from a book. Also present were paintings Leedy did as a young man in New York that were highly influenced by Picasso and the abstract-expressionists he knew and admired like deKooning. It was during one of his forays in New York that Leedy saw Oppenheim's "Fur-lined Tea Cup," and he began to see the possibility of ceramics beyond function. Later two-dimensional work, such as "Freedom" (1994-96) and "Skull" (1990) demonstrate the intuitive and expressive style that dominates Leedy's ceramics. "Jim is well known nationally for his ceramics," says Mark J. Spencer, the curator of the exhibit, "but in Kansas City he's also known for his painting and other work. Leedy loved the immediacy of paint. He can see the marks he's making without waiting for a kiln to cool." The ceramics in the exhibit featured many of the pieces that typically identify Leedy's work. "Metamorphosis" (1968) demonstrates the early influences of abstract expressionist painting transformed into a three-dimensional space. Works such as "Voulkos Pedestal" (1972) and "Thomas Hart Benton Bank" (1970) show the humor that often appears in his representations of friends, family, and historic figures. We can also see the repetition of a small, cast face of Lincoln in the "Benton Bank" and again in the ceramic portrait plate of his daughter, "Stephanie in the Stars" (1975). During this exhibit that celebrated past work, Leedy was kept busy with a variety of new works going up in several galleries. Among these shows was an installation entitled "War," built on site at the Grand arts in Kansas City. The work was partially influenced by Leedy's experiences as a photo journalist One of the combined media works, "The Earth Lies Screaming," uses skeletal forms interlaced with geese, woven together in a complex and beautiful pattern. The imagery is stark, morbid and hypnotic. The viewer is drawn into the massive work that reaches from the floor to the ceiling. other exhibits included a series of new paintings at the Dolphin Gallery, Kansas City, and an exhibit at his own gallery, the Leedy-Voulkos Art Center. When asked what it was like to see so many of his past works on display, Leedy responded, "It was like seeing it from someone else's perspective. I kept thinking, 'I know this guy.' I wasn't too critical of my early works because I saw them as a way of looking back and seeing what I could do with that throughout my career, i changed directions over and over, I went ahead and did what I wanted and didn't spend time worrying over sales or fame." Art author Matthew Kangas recently completed a biography, Jim Leedy: Artist Across Boundaries (University of Washington Press), which chronicles the work and accomplishments of Jim Leedy in 178 pages featuring numerous photos of his work. All proceeds from sales of the book will go toward the new Jim Leedy scholarship Fund at the Kansas City Art Institute, where Leedy has served as an instructor for the past 30 years. "I love teaching," said Leedy. "It has given me the freedom to pursue my work without economic pressures. teachers often say that teaching interferes with their time to create, but I feel it has never stood in the way." The retrospective at the Albrecht-Kemper Museum of Art gave people an opportunity to see the progress of style and interests of this great ceramic artist. By showing a retrospective simultaneously with several new exhibits and installations, it is clear that Leedy is still an imaginative, active artist who goes wherever his artistic bent takes him and uses whichever medium best expresses his goals. |
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Article used with permission. |
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