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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Hector Leonardi: New Paintings
May 31-July 7, 2012
Opening reception: Thursday, May 31, 2012 6-8pm
Dillon Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition of new paintings by an American master, Hector Leonardi. It is his fourth exhibition at the gallery. Writing in the new monograph, Hector Leonardi (San Rocco Press) critic Lyle Rexer has this to say about Leonardi’s unique brand of abstraction:
Leonardi has elaborated a set of possibilities for acrylic painting that involve the complex relationship between
surface texture, color, and light. To carry this through, he has developed a collage technique of unusual richness.
His paintings are constructed objects whose appeal is only partly - although strongly-visual. At their best, they
are also physically compelling and symbolically suggestive. With diverse eloquence, they testify to the heart’s
truth, the eye’s affections, the mind’s misgivings and the body’s trust.
The paintings in the current exhibition mark yet another stage in the career of this remarkable artist. Here he
has combined the open elds of delicate background color with remarkably complex and chromatically intricate
acrylic collage that are the painter’s hallmark. Leonardi’s mastery of color, lauded by such critics as Donald
Kuspit and Robert C. Morgan, has never been more daring. A student of Josef Albers at Yale, where he took his
MFA in painting in the 1950s, Leonardi was among the second generation of American abstractionists. He
navigated his own path between expressionism and minimalism, to emerge in the 1980s with a distinct visual
vocabulary. He has continued to develop and even revolutionize that vocabulary ever since. His consistent
willingness to transform his practice has made him an important gure in the current renaissance of abstract
painting.
Hector Leonardi’s paintings have been the subject of many one-man exhibitions in the United States and
abroad and his work has been included in numerous group exhibitions. His paintings are held in many collections,
both public and private.
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