Alfred Leslie
Encyclopedia
Alfred Leslie is an American artist and filmmaker. He first achieved success as an Abstract Expressionist painter, but changed course in the early 1960s and became a painter of realistic  figurative painting
Figure painting
Figure painting is a form of the visual arts in which the artist uses a live model as the subject of a two-dimensional piece of artwork using paint as the medium. The live model can be either nude or partly or fully clothed and the painting is a representation of the full body of the model...

s.

Biography

Alfred Leslie was born in New York
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

. After service in the US Coast Guard at the end of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, Leslie studied art at New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...

, the Art Students League
Art Students League of New York
The Art Students League of New York is an art school located on West 57th Street in New York City. The League has historically been known for its broad appeal to both amateurs and professional artists, and has maintained for over 130 years a tradition of offering reasonably priced classes on a...

, and Pratt Institute
Pratt Institute
Pratt Institute is a private art college in New York City located in Brooklyn, New York, with satellite campuses in Manhattan and Utica. Pratt is one of the leading undergraduate art schools in the United States and offers programs in Architecture, Graphic Design, History of Art and Design,...

. A bodybuilder and hand-balancer, Leslie posed for artist Reginald Marsh
Reginald Marsh
Reginald Marsh may refer to:* Reginald Marsh , American painter most notable for his detailed depictions of life in New York City in the 1920s* Reginald Marsh , actor in many British sitcoms...

 and others and modeled for classes at the Art Students League and Pratt Institute
Pratt Institute
Pratt Institute is a private art college in New York City located in Brooklyn, New York, with satellite campuses in Manhattan and Utica. Pratt is one of the leading undergraduate art schools in the United States and offers programs in Architecture, Graphic Design, History of Art and Design,...

. Anticipating the Situationist International's detournement
Detournement
A détournement is a technique developed in the 1950s by the Letterist International, and consist in "turning expressions of the capitalist system against itself." Détournement was prominently used to set up subversive political pranks, an influential tactic called situationist prank that was...

, his 1949 film Magic Thinking combined black-and-white cartoons, home movies, GI training films, industrial commercials, strip footage and old feature films. To raise the $250 required of by Tibor de Nagy Gallery
Tibor de Nagy Gallery
The Tibor de Nagy Gallery is an art gallery in New York City, USA. It was involved in the discovery of many of the Second Generation Abstract Expressionist Movement’s most important artists and also representational artists of the era including Grace Hartigan, Alfred Leslie, Helen Frankenthaler,...

 to exhibit there in 1952, he appeared on Strike It Rich, an early reality television
Reality television
Reality television is a genre of television programming that presents purportedly unscripted dramatic or humorous situations, documents actual events, and usually features ordinary people instead of professional actors, sometimes in a contest or other situation where a prize is awarded...

 program, and won. His 1952 exhibition included The Bed-Sheet Painting, a 12 by 16 foot, black painting with a scumbled surface and white bar mounted on unstretched canvas. In the '50s, he made sculptures using seemingly insignificant materials such as plumber's tape, stapes, grommets, nails, housepaint. Anticipating John Chamberlain
John Chamberlain
John Angus Chamberlain is an American sculptor.Born in Rochester, Indiana, John Chamberlain spent much of his youth in Chicago. After serving in the navy from 1943 to 1946, he attended the Art Institute of Chicago and Black Mountain College...

's sculptures made from recycled cars, Leslie tied together car mufflers and tail pipes with rope after hammering and reassembling them. In 1955, a collector gave him a Polaroid
Instant camera
The instant camera is a type of camera that generates a developed film image. The most popular types to use self-developing film were formerly made by Polaroid Corporation....

 camera, driving him to take hundreds of police-style mugshots, of which only photos of Sam Francis
Sam Francis
Samuel Lewis Francis was an American painter and printmaker.-Early life:...

 and Al Held
Al Held
Al Held was an American Abstract expressionist painter. He was particularly well known for his large scale Hard-edge paintings.-Background and education:...

 survived.

Invited to partake in Museum of Modern Art
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...

's "Art in Motion" (1961) exhibition, curated by Pontus Hulten
Pontus Hultén
Karl Gunnar Vougt Pontus Hultén was a Swedish art collector and museum director. Pontus Hultén is regarded as one of the most distinguished museum professionals of the twentieth century...

, Leslie proposed Jolly, a kit with the ingredients to make an inflatable sculpture. Anticipating Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol
Andrew Warhola , known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art...

's Clouds (1966), he proposed that a massive weather balloon suspend a brick over an inflated wading pool. In 1962, having gained recognition as a second generation Abstract Expressionist
Abstract expressionism
Abstract expressionism was an American post–World War II art movement. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve worldwide influence and put New York City at the center of the western art world, a role formerly filled by Paris...

 painter, Leslie abruptly changed course. His new works were realistic figurative paintings in grisaille
Grisaille
Grisaille is a term for painting executed entirely in monochrome or near-monochrome, usually in shades of grey. It is particularly used in large decorative schemes in imitation of sculpture. Many grisailles in fact include a slightly wider colour range, like the Andrea del Sarto fresco...

, of which he later said, "there was a point at which I realized that if my work was to develop and evolve, and if I was to mature as an artist, these figurative ideas could not be ignored, even though following them could seem to imply that I would be turning my back on the twentieth century, turning my back on my abstract achievement".

On October 17, 1966, nearly all of Leslie's monochrome paintings were destroyed in a fire. Shortly afterwards, Leslie introduced color into his paintings, which have been widely exhibited. Leslie's solo exhibitions include those at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Massachusetts, is one of the largest museums in the United States, attracting over one million visitors a year. It contains over 450,000 works of art, making it one of the most comprehensive collections in the Americas...

 (1976); Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden is an art museum beside the National Mall, in Washington, D.C., the United States. The museum was initially endowed during the 1960s with the permanent art collection of Joseph H. Hirshhorn. It was designed by architect Gordon Bunshaft and is part of the...

, Smithsonian Institution
Smithsonian Institution
The Smithsonian Institution is an educational and research institute and associated museum complex, administered and funded by the government of the United States and by funds from its endowment, contributions, and profits from its retail operations, concessions, licensing activities, and magazines...

, Washington, DC (1976–77); Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago
Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago
The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago is a contemporary art museum near Water Tower Place in downtown Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States. The museum, which was established in 1967, is one of the world's largest contemporary art venues...

 (1977); Wichita Art Museum
Wichita Art Museum
The Wichita Art Museum is an art museum located in Wichita, Kansas. It was established in 1915, when Louise Murdock’s Will created a trust to start a collection of art works by “American painters, potters, sculptors, and textile weavers.” The collection includes works by Mary Cassatt, Arthur G...

, Kansas
Kansas
Kansas is a US state located in the Midwestern United States. It is named after the Kansas River which flows through it, which in turn was named after the Kansa Native American tribe, which inhabited the area. The tribe's name is often said to mean "people of the wind" or "people of the south...

 (1984); Boca Raton Museum of Art
Boca Raton Museum of Art
The Boca Raton Museum of Art is located at 501 Plaza Real, Boca Raton, Florida in Mizner Park. It houses works of art by a number of the great masters.-About:...

, Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...

 (1989); and St. Louis Art Museum, Missouri
Missouri
Missouri is a US state located in the Midwestern United States, bordered by Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. With a 2010 population of 5,988,927, Missouri is the 18th most populous state in the nation and the fifth most populous in the Midwest. It...

 (1991). Even though figuration and narration became contentious issues for painters in the 1980s, "these concerns didn't exist per se in film, theater, literary or still photography world, all of which I was part of."

Leslie is also known for his large scale charcoal drawings, and for his work as a photographer and filmmaker. Together with Robert Frank
Robert Frank
Robert Frank , born in Zürich, Switzerland, is an important figure in American photography and film. His most notable work, the 1958 photobook titled The Americans, was influential, and earned Frank comparisons to a modern-day de Tocqueville for his fresh and skeptical outsider's view of American...

, Leslie directed the short film Pull My Daisy
Pull My Daisy
Pull My Daisy is a short film that typifies the Beat Generation. Directed by Robert Frank and Alfred Leslie, Daisy was adapted by Jack Kerouac from the third act of his play, Beat Generation; Kerouac also provided improvised narration...

in 1959. The film, narrated by Jack Kerouac
Jack Kerouac
Jean-Louis "Jack" Lebris de Kerouac was an American novelist and poet. He is considered a literary iconoclast and, alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, a pioneer of the Beat Generation. Kerouac is recognized for his spontaneous method of writing, covering topics such as Catholic...

, was selected for the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...

 in 1996. He also created the films Directions: A Walk After the War Games (1946-9), The Last Clean Shirt with the poet Frank O'Hara
Frank O'Hara
Francis Russell "Frank" O'Hara was an American writer, poet and art critic. He was a member of the New York School of poetry.-Life:...

(1964), The Cedar Bar (2001), Einstein's Secret (2008) and the animated film The New York Story (1963).

Further reading

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