‘Portrait of a College’

Mel Leipzig pays homage to his colleagues at Mercer County Community College through his realistic, highly detailed large-scale paintings.

By: Susan Van Dongen
   It’s startling at first. We don’t usually see paintings of an intensive care unit, a nurse standing in the midst of beds filled with patients. The hospital room looks like any other facility you might have seen — beds, the rollaway dining tables, portable racks with various bags of fluids dangling. Then there are the patients who seem to be reclining peacefully. But one man’s hospital gown is rolled up to his thighs — almost a little bit "too much information."
   "The Nursing Teacher" is one of a new group of works painted by Trenton resident Mel Leipzig and, as is his custom, is created from a live model, not a photograph. So the teacher apparently posed for the work of art, but were the patients also posing or were they just unconscious? How did the man in the rolled up gown feel about it?
   Mr. Leipzig laughs and explains that the "patients" are actually dummies — which is good because otherwise he’d have to pay them. "All the subjects posed for a good hour or two, and then I am able to paint the background and fill in the details from memory," he says. "For ‘The Nursing Teacher,’ I saw the room and thought, ‘Wow, look at this place.’"
   "The Nursing Teacher" is one of a number of recent works Mr. Leipzig has created to pay homage to his colleagues at Mercer County Community College.
   The works depict MCCC faculty, administrators, staff, students and their families — even the cafeteria ladies. The collection, titled Mel Leipzig: Portrait of a College, is on view at Artworks Gallery in Trenton through April 7. The veteran artist and teacher will be on hand March 8 to give a slide show and lecture about his paintings, and also to discuss a bit of his technique.
   "I use a very limited palette — mostly dark blue, dark red, yellow and white," he says. "But you can get practically anything from just these colors. I was thinking I might give a short demonstration."
   In addition, the artist will be in the gallery in the Mill Hill section of Trenton Saturday and Sunday afternoons through the duration of the exhibit, working on a painting of Artworks. He plans to include the New Jersey State Museum’s Helen Shannon, who is on the board of Artworks, as well as a former student.
   "Possibly some of the visitors who come through, too," Mr. Leipzig says.
   The idea behind the exhibit as well as the on-site painting is to draw attention to and perhaps revive Artworks, which seems to have been on the verge of closing for close to a year. Founded in the early ’80s and home to a number of popular art classes recently run through MCCC, for a while it sounded like the whole place was doomed to development.
   "All of a sudden, there was talk about changing this building into condos," Mr. Leipzig says. "The idea was that the condos would be for artists, but I thought it was ludicrous for the prices they were talking about, upwards of $250,000. Can you name one artist who can spend that kind of money, especially in Trenton?
   "The idea for the condos has pretty much fallen through and now they’re trying to do something to regain attention for Artworks," he continues. "They’re hoping from this exhibit to show that Artworks is open and it would be great if someone could come to our aid. It’s a great space to show your work. I love to exhibit here because my pieces are usually large and I like people to see them from a distance. They’re hoping other artists will do the same. It’s a great opportunity to show work they might not be able to show otherwise."
   Four of the paintings in this exhibit resulted from a series of dramatic readings of plays by Norwegian dramatist Henrik Ibsen, held at Artworks in 2005. The readings were performed and directed by students and faculty associated with the theater program at MCCC. The actors and directors of the plays then posed for the paintings in the Studio Theater on MCCC’s West Windsor campus.
   "I am a big fan of Ibsen’s," Mr. Leipzig says. "There were two nights of readings — the last act of ‘A Doll’s House’ and ‘Peer Gynt’ — and it was really terrific, packed both nights.
   "The actors were extraordinary and the director, Maureen Heffernan, did a terrific job," he continues. "So after it was over I told the people in the play that I would like to do a couple of paintings, using the theater at MCCC as a backdrop."
   Mr. Leipzig has an uncanny talent for capturing his subjects’ body language and facial expressions — we wonder what they might be thinking. As usual, the works are highly detailed with unusual perspectives. "The Producers of the Ibsen Readings," for example, has the viewer’s eyes rise toward the rigging and the stage lights — perhaps a little glimpse of reality behind the theatrical magic.
   "The person’s environment is connected to you as a person," Mr. Leipzig says. "You and your environment have something in common."
   At 70-by-64 inches, "The Producers of the Ibsen Readings" is the largest piece. "I want you to feel as though you can enter them," Mr. Leipzig says.
   Other paintings in the Artworks show include "The College Cafeteria," "The Gym Teacher and His Daughter," "The College Computer Expert and His Sons" and the "College Television Station."
   It’s hard to imagine another contemporary artist based at a college who so lovingly captures the people and environment around him. This is Mr. Leipzig’s trademark.
   "Realism deals with what is around you," he says. "I don’t know anyone who has painted what’s around the college the way that I have. Most painters teach but they don’t paint the teachers and students around them. When I can’t find anything more to paint at the school, I guess I’ll stop."
   A professor of art at MCCC, Mr. Leipzig teaches painting and art history. Age 72, he’s been at MCCC since 1968. He studied painting at Cooper Union, Yale University and the Pratt Institute, where he received his master’s of fine arts degree. Among his many accolades are Distinguished Teacher Award and a National Endowment for the Arts grant. Mr. Leipzig has had more than 35 solo exhibits and his works are in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum, the New Jersey State Museum and the Architectural Archives of the University of Pennsylvania. He also has a piece at the Jersey City Museum and has high praise for the way the arts community there has rejuvenated the town. He hopes Trenton will follow suit.
   "Art can do so much for a city — look at Jersey City and Hoboken, how those cities have been revived," Mr. Leipzig says. "The more art you have in a city, the better it is."
Mel Leipzig: Portrait of a College is on view at Artworks Gallery, 19 Everett Alley, Trenton, through April 7. Gallery hours: Sat.-Sun., noon-5 p.m. and by appointment. Mr. Leipzig will give a slide show and lecture March 8, 6 p.m. He also will be at the gallery during the weekends working on a painting. For information, call (609) 586-4800, ext. 3353. Mr. Leipzig is represented by The Gallery Henoch, 555 W. 25th St., New York, N.Y. On the Web: www.galleryhenoch.com