Dennis Leon, Large Abstract Landscape Pastel Drawing Painting San Francisco Artist, Megan, 1981

Description

It has a variegated texture to it. It is signed and titled. Large format drawing or painting in pastel or … more It has a variegated texture to it. It is signed and titled. Large format drawing or painting in pastel or crayon. pastoral landscape with boulders and rocks in pasture.
Dennis Leon, was a San Francisco Bay Area sculptor and art instructor
Mr. Leon was chairman of the sculpture department at the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland from 1972 to 1988. He remained a faculty member until his retirement as professor emeritus in 1993. A vibrant work in pastel with the energy and texture seen in the work of Wolf Kahn. He was born in London, England and emigrated in 1951 to the United States, where he studied at Temple University in Philadelphia. He graduated with art degrees, including a master's degree in fine art.
He served in the U.S. Army and the Army Reserve from 1957 to 1963.
In 1959, Mr. Leon joined the faculty of the Philadelphia Museum College of Art. He also worked as an art critic for the Philadelphia Inquirer until 1962. After coming to the Bay Area, he held his first local one-man show of sculpture in 1973, at the James Willis Gallery in San Francisco. His body of work includes site-specific installations, collage, drawings, pastels, and sculpture in wood and bronze. In each case, the landscape, natural forms and textures, and the artist's relationship to them were of central focus. Over the course of his career the artist has had more than eighty exhibitions, and his works were exhibited widely at such institutions as the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Oakland Museum, the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, D.C., Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Djerassi Foundation.
He received many awards, including fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts and the MacDowell Colony.

Solo Exhibitions
1993 Cheryl Haines Gallery, San Francisco, CA; 1992 Dorothy Goldeen Gallery, Santa Monica, CA; 1991 Chemeketa Community College, Salem, OR; 1991 Anne Reid Gallery, Ketchum, ID; 1991 Cheryl Haines Gallery, San Francisco, CA; 1991Butters Gallery, Portland, OR; 1990 Dorothy Goldeen Gallery, Santa Monica, CA; 1990 California State University, Fresno, CA; 1989Dorothy Goldeen Gallery, Santa Monica, CA; 1988 J. Noblett Gallery, Sonoma, CA; 1987 J. Noblett Gallery, Sonoma, CA; 1986, 1984, 1982, 1981, 1979 Fuller Goldeen Gallery, San Francisco, CA; 1981 San Jose Museum of Fine Arts, San Jose, CA; 1978 Galleria D'Arte Del Cavallino, Venice Italy; 1977 Hansen Fuller Gallery, San Francisco, CA; 1973 James Willis Gallery, San Francisco, CA; 1971 Philadelphia College of Art, Philadelphia , PA; 1970, 1968, 1966, Kraushaar Gallery, NY, NY; 1965 Henri Gallery, Washington, DC.

Grants / Fellowships
1984 Marin Headlands Art Center, Djerassi Foundation Fellowship; 1983 Djerassi Foundation Fellowship; 1982 Macdowell Fellowship; 1979 National Endowments for the Arts; 1978 San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Golden Gate National Recreation area; 1967 John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, National Institute of Arts and Letters. less