{"id":6377,"date":"2025-09-12T04:41:00","date_gmt":"2025-09-12T04:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/notofu.com\/new\/?p=6377"},"modified":"2025-12-14T04:19:36","modified_gmt":"2025-12-14T04:19:36","slug":"shooting-from-the-heart-june-leafs-seven-decade-journey-in-american-art","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/notofu.com\/new\/shooting-from-the-heart-june-leafs-seven-decade-journey-in-american-art\/","title":{"rendered":"Shooting from the Heart: June Leaf\u2019s Seven-Decade Journey in American Art"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n

The Addison Gallery of American Art at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, presents June Leaf: Shooting from the Heart<\/em>, a compelling retrospective that traces the seven-decade career of the late American artist. The exhibition, which recently concluded its premiere run at the Addison, is currently on view at the Grey Art Museum at New York University, through December 13, and will subsequently travel to the Allen Memorial Art Museum at Oberlin College from January 26 to May 24, 2026. Featuring over 150 works, the show spans Leaf\u2019s wide-ranging and genre-defying practice, including paintings, drawings, collages, and kinetic sculptures.<\/p>\n\n

Curated over four years with Leaf\u2019s close involvement before her passing in 2024, the exhibition is organized into five thematic sections. It reveals her enduring fascination with motion, mythology, and the human experience, capturing her capacity to translate inner life into visual form. From her early days in Chicago to her later years in Nova Scotia with her husband, photographer and filmmaker Robert Frank, Leaf consistently worked outside of artistic trends, forging a path defined by experimentation and intuition.<\/p>\n\n

\"\"\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/svg>\n\t\t<\/button>\n
June Leaf,
Sleeping Man<\/em>, 2020<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n\n

Leaf first garnered critical attention in the 1960s with her exhibition Street Dreams<\/em> at the Allan Frumkin Gallery. Though loosely associated with Chicago\u2019s \u201cMonster Roster,\u201d she quickly moved beyond the confines of any particular movement. Her work fluidly crosses media and merges the mechanical with the organic, the poetic with the absurd. Personal narrative, political critique, and spiritual inquiry coexist throughout her practice.<\/p>\n\n

Highlights of the exhibition include Woman Theater<\/em> (1968), a hybrid painting-sculpture composed of oil, wood, and tin; Ascension of Pig Lady<\/em> (1968), a hand-sewn, semi-autobiographical figure; and The Head<\/em> (1981), a breathing kinetic sculpture. These works explore the complex relationship between structure and freedom, technology and the body. Leaf’s use of humble materials\u2014wire, fabric, tin, string\u2014transforms everyday objects into metaphors for inner struggle, resilience, and transcendence. Her figures, often female, operate as mythic symbols, challenging traditional gender roles and offering alternatives to dominant cultural narratives.<\/p>\n\n

In early pieces like Woman Machine<\/em> (1951), Leaf imagines a woman forged through combustion, born of connection to a robotic maker. This theme\u2014the merging of human vitality with mechanical force\u2014recurs throughout her oeuvre, raising questions about autonomy, desire, and creative power. Later drawings and assemblages, such as On the Pain of Growing a Wing<\/em> (2016), extend this inquiry into realms of metamorphosis and spiritual survival.<\/p>\n\n

Leaf\u2019s art is deeply rooted in observation, yet it consistently breaks from realism. From her youthful explorations of Chicago\u2019s elevated trains to the solitude of Nova Scotia\u2019s landscapes, she sought moments of escape and transformation. Her compositions often move between two- and three-dimensional space, pushing against the limits of medium and metaphor alike.<\/p>\n\n

\"\"\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/svg>\n\t\t<\/button>\n
June Leaf,
How Can I Be Sure<\/em>, 1973<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n\n

The exhibition closes with a handwritten reflection beneath Woman Theater<\/em>, where Leaf offers a moving summation of her life\u2019s work: \u201cI wanted to show that there was a woman who was like a \u2018guru\u2019\u2014or toy maker […] like a spider with many arms always trying to control \u2018life\u2019\u2014but around her was nature\u2014free, everflowing, eternal. I am just learning. I am a crazy plant.\u201d<\/p>\n\n

June Leaf: Shooting from the Heart<\/em> is a rare and revelatory tribute to one of American art\u2019s most singular voices. With raw inventiveness and uncompromising vision, Leaf dedicated her life to exploring what it means to be human in a world of systems, contradictions, and possibility. Her work remains a lasting invitation to look closely, feel deeply, and imagine otherwise.<\/p>\n\n

June Leaf: Shooting from the Heart<\/em> is on display at Grey Art Museum in New York City through December 13, 2025.<\/p>\n\n

Grey Art Museum
18 Cooper Square, New York, NY 10003
greayartmuseum.nyu.edu<\/p>\n\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

June Leaf spent a lifetime turning scraps and symbols into stories\u2014now, her legacy takes flight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6379,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"[]","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-art"],"acf":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/notofu.com\/new\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/d8163d0db35756f4bb064eca7e4ff486-1-scaled.jpg?fit=2017%2C2560&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paoQFa-1ER","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/notofu.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/notofu.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/notofu.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/notofu.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/notofu.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6377"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/notofu.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6377\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6485,"href":"https:\/\/notofu.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6377\/revisions\/6485"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/notofu.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6379"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/notofu.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/notofu.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/notofu.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}