MCCC Art Professor Mel Leipzig Examines Use of Black and White in Painting

Renowned artist Mel Leipzig, professor of art and art history at Mercer County Community College, will present an illustrated lecture, "The Use of Black and White in Painting," highlighting works from the Renaissance to Contemporary Art, on Tuesday, Sept. 27 at 12 noon. Leipzig's slide show presentation takes place in the Communications Building, CM 110, on MCCC's West Windsor Campus, 1200 Old Trenton Road. Free and open to the public, his talk is the first in Mercer's Distinguished Lecture Series for the fall 2011 semester.

Leipzig will feature one of his own paintings, along with those of notable artists including Piero della Francesca, Paolo Uccello, Pieter Brueghel, Edouard Manet, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Franz Kline, Edouard Vuillard and Fairfield Porter. "As colors, black and white are very important elements in painting," Leipzig said. "I want to demonstrate how both are used to create a focal point, clarity of illusionistic space, unification of design, a sense of light and a greater intensity of color."

A long-time Trenton resident, Leipzig's own work continues to be in demand. His paintings will be featured in an exhibition entitled, "Fathers," from Sept. 12 to Oct. 6 at The Anne Reid '72 Art Gallery at Princeton Day School. He is also part of an upcoming exhibition, "From New Jersey to Cape Cod," which opens Sept. 17 and runs through Dec. 4 at the Cape Cod Museum of Art in Dennis, Mass. In January, the newly-renovatEd Gallery at the National Academy Museum in New York City will showcase his work.

In the past year, Leipzig has had shows at Rider University, Richard Stockton College and the West Windsor Arts Council. His life and career were the focus of a New Jersey Network documentary entitled "Mel Leipzig: Everything is Paintable," which aired last January. His works are part of the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Yale University Art Gallery, The White House, and the Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum.

In 2006, Leipzig was elected to the prestigious National Academy of Design in New York. His awards and recognitions include a Fulbright Teaching Fellowship, the Louis Comfort Tiffany Award, and a grant in painting from the National Endowment for the Arts. Leipzig studied at Cooper Union, Yale University and Pratt Institute, where he earned his M.F.A. Art critic Burton Wasserman has described him as "New Jersey's greatest living painter."

To learn more about upcoming lectures at Mercer County Community College, visit www.mccc.edu/events or call 609-570-3324.

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