Mira Lehr in front of Buckminster Fuller’s Fly Dome. Photo by Jonathan Traviesa
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Now, more than 70 years later after witnessing that terrible sign that said "No Jews, No Dogs,"
Mira Lehr has created powerful new work that calls attention to today’s
pressing issues ─ saving the planet and protecting the environment.
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"My creation of art has always been based on nature, but now I am more dedicated to ecology and saving the planet. We are all in a terrible dilemma now, the planet is suffering and is in danger.
People
need to be aware of the danger that is threatening all of us, and we
have to work together to reverse this situation," adds Lehr.
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Turquoise Rain, by Mira Lehr. Burned and dyed Japanese paper, acrylic, ink, stencil and resin on canvas.
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This original new exhibition was conceived by Jacqueline Goldstein, the museum's Curator and features 180 aerial sculptures.
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Mira Lehr in front of Creation (triptych)
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Mira Lehr in the studio with Zoltan Hecht, 1958
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In
the 1950s in New York, Mira Lehr knew and worked with some of America's
most prominent leading artists: Lee Krasner, Joan Mitchell, Hans
Hoffman, Helen Frankenthaler, Robert Motherwell, James Brooks . . .
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Prior to her return to Miami Beach in 1960, Lehr studied and worked in New York as an artist, where she became friendly with some of America’s most prominent artists including: Joan Mitchell, Lee Krasner, and Helen Frankenthaler. She studied with James Brooks, Ludwig Sander and Robert Motherwell, and within the Hans Hofmann circle.
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Mira Lehr with Robert Motherwell, 1964
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Blazing the trail for women artists
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When
Lehr moved back to Miami Beach in 1960, she was shocked at the lack of
an art scene in Miami, especially the plight of women artists. "Women
artists at that time felt stranded and hopeless in Miami," said Lehr. "I
was determined to change that."
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She
then founded Continuum in 1960, one of the country’s first co-ops for
women artists who were excluded from the male-dominated art world.
Continuum grew and succeeded for more than 30 years, shining a spotlight
on Miami Beach’s fledgling art scene, well before Art Basel would
impact the area’s cultural landscape.
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Mira
Lehr in front of the Continuum co-op for women artists.. Photo by
Annamae Levenson. (Balcony, left to right) – Peggy Gordon, Mira Lehr;
(Top ladder, left to right)- Frida Tschumy, Brook Angle; (Bottom, left
to right)- Kate Clark, Marcella Waldman, Shirley Michnoff, Annamae
Levenson, Pansy Schenck (wife of Nicholas Schenck, the executive of MGM
Studios), Carol Fryd
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Lehr’s
processes include non-traditional media such as resin, gunpowder, fire,
Japanese paper, dyes and welded steel. She ignites and explodes fuses,
which burn holes and leave imprints on her layered paintings.
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Lehr
has inspired new generations of young artists by serving as a mentor
and collaborator. She has taught master classes with the National Young
Arts Foundation and has been artist in residence at the Bascom Summer
Programs. Her solo and group exhibitions number over 300.
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Watch this short film showing how Lehr uses gunpowder and explosives to create art at this link.
She describes her use of explosives as tying into the theme of creation
versus destruction, which is integral to the cycle of nature.
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Lehr’s processes include non-traditional media such as gunpowder, fire and Japanese paper.
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"Mira
Lehr has created a spectacular new series of artworks specifically with
this museum in mind," said Susan Gladstone, the Executive Director of
the Jewish Museum of Florida-FIU. "The exhibition is a result of Lehr's
personal visit to this museum, after she spent time here and reflected
upon the emotions and inspiration she felt. Lehr has combined her art
with that of the stained-glass windows and the play of light they create
together. The result is truly magnificent."
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Lehr’s
new aerial installation of 180 sculptures was inspired by the beauty
and majesty of the Jewish Museum of Florida-FIU. “I want viewers to feel
like they are walking through an aerial garden of luminous, reflecting
sculptures,” said Lehr.
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One
of Lehr’s new series of sculptures for this exhibition is based on the
seven kinds of plants mentioned in the Torah. “It will be a holy garden,
that takes people out of the actual world and transports them onto a
spiritual plane,” adds Lehr.
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More about the artist . . .
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Mira
Lehr is a graduate of Vassar College (1956) with a degree in Art
History, under the mentorship of feminist art historian, Linda Nochlin.
In the 1960s, she collaborated with famous American painter, Robert
Motherwell. In 1969 she was selected by Richard Buckminster Fuller, the
renowned American architect, author and systems theorist, to participate
in the first World Game Scenario Project at the New York Studio School.
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Approaching the Singularity (2019), by Mira Lehr. Burned Japanese paper, acrylic, ink and resin on canvas
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Working
with imagery from the natural world, Lehr creates layered abstract
compositions with unconventional materials. The 60 Minutes correspondent
Morley Safer referred to her as "the mistress of light.”
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The
lush flora of her Florida home has a profound influence on her
aesthetic vocabulary. Art historian Irving Sandler describes her use of
imagery: “What makes Lehr's work different is the specificity of her
references to nature. I was trying to think of any other artist working
in this tradition who did it quite as explicitly as Mira does, and I
couldn’t come up with one."
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Chinese Dream I and II by Mira Lehr. Acrylic, stencil, Japanese paper, ink and resin on canvas.
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Her
work can be seen in American Embassies around the world and is
permanently on view in the lobby of the Evelyn Lauder Breast Center of
the Sloan Kettering Memorial Center.
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Her
video installation, V1 V3, was on view at the New Museum, NY. She has
been collected by institutions across the U.S., including: The New
Museum in New York, the Smithsonian Museum of American Art in Washington
DC, the Getty Museum Research Center in Los Angeles, the Frances Lehman
Loeb Art Center in New York, The Bass Museum of Art in Miami Beach, and
the Perez Art Museum Miami.
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She
is also included in the prestigious Leonard Lauder Corporate Collection
in New York. Thirty of her paintings were commissioned to be in the
permanent collection of the state-of-the-art, recently completed Mount
Sinai Hospital in Miami Beach.
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Her
work was included in Art Miami and Pinta Art Fair during Art Basel by
Rosenbaum Gallery, and MANA Contemporary. Lehr’s work is in many
prominent private collections, including the collection of Elie and
Marion Wiesel, Jane and Morley Safer, artist Judy Pfaff, and more.
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Mira Lehr in front of Buckminster Fuller’s Fly Dome, PAMM Museum, 2014. Photo by Jonathan Traviesa
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