 “The
Painting World of Evelyn Leavens” at the Monmouth Museum
Artist
Evelyn Leavens is a work in progress, and, at 86, she wouldn’t
have it any other way as she heads into a one-person retrospective
of her work at the Monmouth Museum in Lincroft this summer. “The
Painting World of Evelyn Leavens” opens with a reception July
9 and runs through September 5. A prolific and inspired artist with
a vast range of styles and content, Leavens has been a stalwart of
the Monmouth County arts community since her first one-woman show
in 1952. Today, more than fifty years later, she still has the spunk
and curiosity of someone just starting out, along with the vitality
and sharpness of mind to fully support her youthful mien.
Born
in 1924, she is a life-long resident of Red Bank. She was producing
fine art oil paintings when she had her first solo exhibit at the
Old Mill Gallery in Tinton Falls, known then for its introduction
of Alice Neel and Martha Graham. It was an artistic direction she
interrupted to work on a series of charcoal pencil drawing that became
a New York Times best-selling picture book published by Simon &
Schuster in 1958. “Boswell’s Life of Boswell” stars
her beloved basset hound Boswell philosophizing on his pragmatic and
uninhibited approach to life.
A
master of multiple mediums, Leavens’ career has led her through
illustration, to commission portraits, representational landscapes,
semi-invented scenes, and eventually into full-fledged abstraction
and beyond. Regardless of the media — collage, watercolor, pencil,
etching, oil — her works “express the comedy of life in
line, color, shape and composition” according to the monograph
for Leavens’ 1994 show at Gallery Jupiter in Little Silver.
Primarily
self taught, she attended the Vermont Studio Center in 1987 where
she studied with Malcolm Morley, Archie Rand and Niel Welliver. She
has received two fellowships from N.J. State Council of the Arts and
was included in the 1977 N.J. Arts Council biennial at the Trenton
State Museum. Her work has shown, notably, at City Without Walls,
Aljira, Tweeds, Summit Art Center and the Morris State Museum.
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