Gallery Talk #2 on Leland Bell | New York Studio School
Gallery talk organized and moderated by Michael Amendolara with Stephanie Franks, Mitchell Johnson, and Paula Stark, recorded on October 12, 2022.
Leland Bell: Paint, Precision, and Placement. A Centennial Exhibition
Curated by Steven Harvey, on view at the New York Studio School from September 09, 2022 - October 27, 2022.
Leland Bell (1922–1991) was born in Cambridge, Maryland, to Russian-Jewish parents. He began a largely self-taught art education at The Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C., where he encountered artist Karl Knaths. After traveling to Provincetown, Massachusetts, to study with Knaths, Bell relocated to New York and embedded himself in the city’s vibrant art scene. He met Icelandic painter Louisa Matthíasdóttir, who had studied with Hans Hoffman, at a party thrown by fellow artist Nell Blaine, and the two wed in 1944; they had one daughter, the painter Temma Bell.
Bell’s early abstract paintings demonstrate the influence of early twentieth-century abstractionists like Piet Mondrian, Paul Klee, and Jean Arp, though he soon turned to figuration in earnest. The gestural impulse of his 1950s’ self-portraits reflect the influence of Giacometti, while the sleek aesthetic of his later paintings signals his interest in Jean Hélion’s and Fernand Léger’s work. Indeed, around 1944, Bell gained employment as a superintendent in Hélion’s building upon learning the artist’s Hudson Street address. Looking for custodial services, Hélion knocked on Bell’s door and was shocked by the younger artist’s extensive knowledge of his work. Bell was also a voluble advocate of André Derain’s later work.
Bell’s first one-man show was held at the Hansa Gallery in 1955. He was a founding teacher at the New York Studio School from 1968 to 1977, after which he and Paul Resika formed and directed the graduate program at Parsons School of Design. From 1964 to 1990, he exhibited regularly at the Robert Schoelkopf Gallery, and Salander-O’Reilly Galleries thereafter. The Phillips Collection organized a retrospective of his paintings and drawings in 1987.
The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue produced by Steven Harvey Fine Arts Projects, featuring texts by Will Heinrich, R. B. Kitaj, Albert Kresch, and Jennifer Samet.
Generous support for this exhibition is provided by Jonathan Becker, Temma Bell, Brice Brown and Don Joint, Vincent Casey, Center for Figurative Painting, the Estate of Leland Bell, the Estate of Louisa Matthíasdóttir, Steven Harvey Fine Arts Projects, Elizabeth Kresch, Richard T. Spurzem, private collectors, individuals, and anonymous patrons of the arts.