Antique

Man (Dreaming), by June Leaf, 1972. Acrylic, and brush and ink on paper, 24 3/4 × 39 3/4 in.
Alice Attie/June Leaf



Mother/Ballroom, by June Leaf c. 1978. Pen and ink, fiber-tipped pen, graphite pencil, rubbing, and colored pencil on paper, 27 × 21 in. Collection of the artist.

June Leaf was trained in ballet, but she's been making visual art since she was a kid. That's a long time – she's 86 and the subject of a new retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City.
Much of Leaf's work tells stories, often about relationships, and especially her relationship with her husband, the renowned photographer Robert Frank — who's far better known than his wife. Now, the Whitney retrospective is the museum's way of saying: It's time to pay attention to June Leaf.

The exhibition is meant to be funky — less like a sterile gallery show, and more like Leaf's crowded studio in downtown Manhattan. But that's not really possible.

Leaf's studio is a jumble of work. A metal sculpture of a recumbent woman with wheels is plopped on top of a radiator, paintings and drawings lean against one another on the floor, and the walls are covered with more drawings and paintings like the overlapping handbills on a construction site barrier. Thin sculptures of hands stick out anywhere they can take hold.


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