STORY OF AN AMERICAN ARTIST
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Harold Lehman had created two molds in the 1940s, which never seemed to have been cast. Read about how Lisa found the perfect foundry to cast these into bronze.
The Harold Lehman YouTube Channel is here!
See videos related to the recent exhibition at the Pollock-Krasner House, as well as other archival videos with Harold Lehman.
Sculptor, Painter, Muralist
Harold Lehman's career as an artist included working with some of the best known names and most famous movements in American art in the 20th century.
His journey as an artist began in the 1920’s when as a child raised in a NY orphanage, he was introduced to art classes. Moving to Los Angeles in 1930 to join his father and attend Manual Arts High School, within the next five years, he was in the first issue of Who’s Who in American Art.
During those five short years not only did he become school chums with Jackson Pollock, Reuben Kadish, and Phil Guston, but also worked as lead apprentice to the Mexican muralist David A. Siqueiros. He won numerous competitions and was recognized by Arthur Millier of the Los Angeles Times as one of the great artists of his generation.
Fascinated with new ideas related to Freud and the Gestalt school of psychology, as well as new ways of looking at the world in the form of Surrealism, he soon became a founding member of the Post-Surrealists, an avant-garde group of California artists.
Returning to New York he brought Jackson Pollock into the Siqueiros Workshop and later was an active member of the Woodstock NY Art Colony where he worked on commissions for the WPA to create murals and posters for the WWII war effort.
He spent the rest of his working life as a professional scenic artist where he was instrumental in creating displays for amusement parks, museums, the 1965 World's Fair, Expo '67, as well as worked on commercials, movies, and many television shows.
Throughout the years he experimented in various mediums and approaches to art. From realism to surrealism, portraits to landscapes, painting to sculpture, and even digital art when he was in his 80's and 90's. He found artistic expression everywhere. Lehman took delight in being an artist and capturing the people, places, and events of his time.
