Alfred Leslie
| Alfred Leslie | |
|---|---|
| Born |
October 29, 1927 New York, United States |
| Nationality | American |
| Known for | Painting, Drawing, Cinema |
| Movement | Abstract expressionism; New Realism |
Alfred Leslie (born October 29, 1927) is an American artist and filmmaker. He first achieved international success as an Abstract Expressionist painter, but changed course in the early 1960s and became a painter of realistic figurative paintings.
Alfred Leslie was born in New York. After service in the US Coast Guard at the end of World War II, Leslie studied art at New York University, the Art Students League, and Pratt Institute. A bodybuilder and hand-balancer, Leslie posed for artist Reginald Marsh and others and modeled for classes at the Art Students League and Pratt Institute. Anticipating the Situationist International's detournement, his 1949 film Magic Thinking combined black-and-white cartoons, home movies, GI training films, industrial commercials, strip footage and old feature films. To raise the $250 required of by Tibor de Nagy Gallery to exhibit there in 1952, he appeared on Strike It Rich, an early reality television program, and won. His 1952 exhibition included The Bed-Sheet Painting, a 12 by 16 foot, black painting with a scumbled surface and white bar mounted on unstretched canvas. In the '50s, he made sculptures using seemingly insignificant materials such as plumber's tape, stapes, grommets, nails, housepaint. Anticipating John Chamberlain's sculptures made from recycled cars, Leslie tied together car mufflers and tail pipes with rope after hammering and reassembling them. In 1955, a collector gave him a Polaroid camera, driving him to take hundreds of police-style mugshots, of which only photos of Sam Francis and Al Held survived.
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