June Leaf (b. Chicago, 1929; d. New York, 2024) lived and worked in New York City and Mabou, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. For over seven decades, the artist explored the human figure, landscape, and mechanical systems in her drawings, paintings, sculpture, and prints.

In her legendary studios, June Leaf worked inventively and agilely with a prolific range of material, juxtaposing and layering each composition and often working simultaneously on paper, canvas, and metal.

Born in Chicago, Leaf spent a formative year painting and drawing in Paris in 1948; she returned to the city a decade later when she was awarded a Fulbright. June Leaf’s work has been exhibited and collected worldwide since 1948 when she was invited to participate in that year’s Annual Exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago, as well as the inaugural Exhibition Momentum organized in response to it by, among others, Leon Golub (b. 1922; d. 2004).

Currently, June Leaf’s work may be seen in New Humans: Memories of the Future, the inaugural exhibition at the New Museum’s newly expanded building, New York, New York, through August 2026.

From 2025–2026, Leaf’s work was the subject of the critically acclaimed traveling retrospective June Leaf: Shooting From the Heart. The exhibition opened at the Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts before it traveled to the Grey Art Museum, New York University, New York, New York, followed by the Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin, Ohio.

The accompanying catalogue, published by Rizzoli, features texts by the exhibition curators as well as the artists Joan Jonas and Kara Walker.

Most recently, the artist’s work was on view in the exhibition Life Dances On: Robert Frank in Dialogue, The Museum of Modern Art, New York (2024–2025); and Americans in Paris: Artists Working in Postwar France, 1946–1962, first at the Grey Art Museum, New York University, New York, New York (2024), then traveling to the Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts (2024–2025).

In Summer 2024, Leaf was included in the group shows Double Threshold at Winter Street Gallery, Edgertown, MA, and Mother Lode: Material and Memory at James Cohan Gallery, New York. Her work was a part of the city-wide festival (re)FOCUS: Philadelphia Focuses on Women in the Visual Arts, celebrating the 50th anniversary of the 1974 festival of the same name. Other recent exhibitions include a solo exhibition at Ortuzar Projects, New York (2022); June Leaf in Mabou Since 1969, a two-venue survey which opened at the Inverness County Centre for the Arts and traveled to The Blue Building Gallery, Nova Scotia (2022–2023); and My Name is Maryan, an exhibition dedicated to the 20th century artist Pinchas Burstein, aka Maryan S. Maryan, at the Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami (2021–2022).

In 2016, the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, presented the solo exhibition June Leaf: Thought is Infinite. Other notable exhibitions include: June Leaf, Museum Tinguely, Basel Switzerland (2004); A Survey of Painting, Sculpture and Works on Paper, 1948–1991, Addison Gallery of American Art (1991); and a retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (1978).

June Leaf’s work is held in private collections — including those of a number of notable contemporary artists — and in permanent public collections including: Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy at Andover, MA; Art Institute of Chicago, IL; DePaul Art Museum, Chicago, IL; Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, WI; Minneapolis Institute of Art, MN; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL; Museum of Modern Art, NY; Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington D.C.; Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Israel; University of Southern Illinois at Carbondale, IL; Whitney Museum of American Art, NY; and Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT. Leaf is the recipient of prestigious awards including a National Endowment for the Arts Grant (1989), a Fulbright Grant (1958), as well as honorary degrees from DePaul University, IL and the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. In 2024, Leaf was inducted into membership of the American Academy of Arts and Letters honor society.

June Leaf is represented by HYPHEN

For inquiries contact reception@hyphenadvisory.com