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June Issue 2003
Elder Art Gallery in Charlotte, NC, Features Retrospective of Works by Leon A. Makielski
The Elder Art Gallery, located in Charlotte, NC's SouthEnd, is presenting the exhibition, A Journey of Creativity Retrospective: Leon A. Makielski (1885 - 1974). The exhibit will be on view through July 25, 2003.
Leon A. Makielski, The Cellist
Time is one of the best indicators of an artist's talent. Rarely does one artist perfect the techniques required to produce masterful landscapes, still lifes and portraits that are as beautiful and meaningful today as they were almost a century ago. Leon Makielski was one of those gifted individuals who devoted his entire adult life to perfecting his skill as a painter. He was able to capture innocence in a young child's eyes, life experiences in an aging face, the dramatic composition of a floral still life and the enchantment of American and European landscapes.
Makielski's talent was recognized at a very young age and he was blessed with a family who understood the importance of encouraging children to maximize talents in order to enrich not only their own lives, but the lives of others.
Elder Art Gallery's A Journey of Creativity traces fifty years of this great American artist's work. This retrospective presents drawings and paintings done by an aspiring artist whose love for painting took him down a road filled with excitement, adventure and emotion. His disciplined approach to his craft enabled him to produce approximately three thousand paintings over the course of his lifetime.
Makielski
was born in Morris Run, Pennsylvania in 1885 and spent the majority
of his childhood in Fort Wayne, Indiana. He studied at The Art
Institute of Chicago between 1903 and 1909 and was active in Fox
River region near Oregon, Illinois, during the first decade of
1900. Makielski was awarded the Institute's prestigious John Quincy
Adams Traveling Fellowship for four consecutive years. He sailed
to Paris in 1909 where he studied at Academie Julian and Academie
de la Grande Chaumiere.
Makielski was active in the painting community in Giverny from
1909 to 1911. His talent was recognized and his work selected
to be exhibited at Le Salons 1910 and 1911 in Paris. During his
time in Europe he visited England, Italy, Germany, Poland, Belgium
and the Netherlands prior to returning to the United States in
1913. He settled in Ann Arbor, Michigan and taught at the University
of Michigan from 1915 until 1927.
After leaving the academic community Makielski devoted his full
attention to painting portraits of notable American business leaders,
state and national government figures. His portraits are listed
in Smithsonian Institution's Catalog of American Portraits, National
Portrait Gallery.
In his book entitled Monet's Giverny, An Impressionist Colony,
William H. Gerdts says of Makielski's paintings: "The landscapes
painted by Leon A. Makielski in 1909 to1911 are the most traditional
of any of the colonists, many of them grain-stack pictures that
emulate Monet's series from twenty years earlier. Judging by the
impressive number of his Giverny pictures, Makielski must have
been very prolific, concentrating on agrarian subjects, as had
Theodore Robinson and others of the first generation."
A Journey of Creativity will present portraits and landscapes completed while Makielski was a student at The Art Institute of Chicago, as well as over five other decades. Elder Art Gallery will display Makielski's Portrait of Penelope Peterson, which was exhibited in Le Salon 1911. Upon its return to the United States the portrait was exhibited at The Art Institute of Chicago before being returned to the artist's private collection in Ann Arbor.
For
further information check our NC Commercial Gallery listings,
call the gallery at 704/370-6337 or visit our website for an online
catalog of work included in the exhibition at (www.elderart.com).
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