June Leaf
"Untitled", 1952
Ink and watercolor, mounted to board
7 x 8 1/2 inches (17.8 x 21.6 cm)
Courtesy of Hyphen, New York
Photo: Kevin Noble

Selected by Randy Kennedy

June Leaf (1929-2024) explored the human figure, landscape, and mechanical systems in her drawings, paintings, and sculpture. She lived and worked in New York City and in Mabou, Nova Scotia. For 76 years, June Leaf was the subject of numerous exhibitions, including a mid-career survey at The Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (1978) and solo exhibitions at the Washington Project for the Arts (1991), The Tinguely Museum, Switzerland (2004), and The Whitney (2016). A new retrospective will open at the Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy at Andover, MA in Spring 2025. It travels to the Grey Art Museum, New York and the Allen Memorial Art Gallery, Oberlin. An accompanying catalogue with texts by Kara Walker and Joan Jonas will be published by Rizzoli. This Fall, June Leaf’s work will be featured in the exhibition Life Dances On: Robert Frank in Dialogue, at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Her work is in the collections of many museums including The Art Institute of Chicago; The Museum of Modern Art, NY; Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington D.C.; and The Whitney Museum of American Art, NY, among others.In 2024, Leaf was inducted as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She received honorary degrees from DePaul University, IL and the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design and she was the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Grant (1989) and a Fulbright Grant (1958) which allowed her to study and work in Paris.