At 93, Bridgehampton Artist Hector Leonardi Reflects on His Creative Life

Hector Leonardi’s smock was covered in splattered paint on a recent afternoon in his light-filled studio in Bridgehampton. The 93-year-old artist’s studio, reconstructed from an old barn, is covered with dozens of paintings, easels, brushes and canvases, where he paints every day. Over 20 of his unique large scale abstract works are being displayed in an exhibition titled “Light Passages” which opened on January 23 at the Lyceum Gallery at the Suffolk County Community College Eastern Campus in Riverhead.

Leonardi’s 5-foot-high textured canvases contain cobalt blues or deep reds that create painterly filigrees that allow soft yellows and oranges to peek through. His color passages are structured in stripes, floating shapes, and atmospheric compositions in weightless color fields. In them, one can see influences of Gustav Klimt’s forests, Seurat’s optical mixing and Klee’s abstractions.

“There are layers,” Leonardi explained of his acrylic painting style while pointing to one of his many pieces. “This is a layer. I begin either with a plain canvas and color it one color, or I color it multi-color and the acrylic makes a skin.” He paints an initial layer on his canvas, and then he adheres patterned paint swatches that he creates previously from built up paint layers. To the eye, his textured horizontal lines and shapes appear to be an extra skin on the canvas, but it is Leonardi’s signature method of working with acrylic paint.

Leonardi was born in 1930 in Waterbury, Connecticut. Leonardi’s father was a professional photographer from Rome, Italy who came to America at age 18 as a tourist. His mother was also born in Italy. Art was a major part of their lives, Leonardi said.

As a child, even before kindergarten, Leonardi could write perfectly and draw perspective. Leonardi’s parents’ first inclination was to involve him in music. His father’s friend was the director of the local symphony orchestra, and could arrange for violin lessons every Saturday afternoon.

“It wasn’t me,” Leonardi said.

Weeks later, his father noticed an ad in the newspaper. The local museum had begun offering art classes for young children on Saturday mornings.

“I went and that was it. I was so excited. I couldn’t wait to go again,” Leonardi explained with a glimmer of excitement in his eyes. That is how I discovered who I was and what I wanted to do with my life.”

Later on, he received a Master of Fine Arts degree from Yale University in 1955 after earning a Bachelor of Fine Art degree at Rhode Island School of Design.

“It was absolutely traditional,” Leonardi said of the Rhode Island School of Design, adding that it was a small school during his day, not like it is today. “Life drawing in the morning, life painting in the afternoon. The next day, still life drawing in the morning, still life painting in the afternoon.”

After Leonardi graduated with his undergraduate degree, he could not see himself painting in the style of still life or landscapes forever.

“It didn’t interest me,” Leonardi explained, adding that there is nothing wrong with being a realistic artist. “I had not found who I was yet. I was still a kid.”

Soon after graduation, Leonardi applied to Yale University and waited weeks to hear a response. He finally received a letter, inviting him to be interviewed by Josef Albers, a chairperson of Yale’s art department and an influential German born artist, as well as one of the first living artists to be given a solo show at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

Leonardi referred to Albers as the “world’s authority on color,” adding that he wrote the “Interaction of Color,” which was an educational handbook that influenced Leonardi among other artists.

“I was excited,” Leonardi remembered. “I brought a large painting and as I sat there waiting for him. He marched in, said a few words to me, said thank you and left. I thought that was it. He wasn’t interested.” Two weeks later, Leonardi received an acceptance letter to the Yale University graduate program of fine arts.

On Leonardi’s first day of class at Yale he was early and had time to explore the campus which would turn out to be the place that helped shape him as an abstract artist. When he walked into the library and saw all sorts of art magazines — foreign, international, different periods of art history. “I knew I was in the right place,” he said reminiscing.

After graduating from Yale, Leonardi moved to New York City. To get his foot in the door of the art world, he worked for industrial designer Russell Wright.

“You find ways to continue to be an artist,” he said. “I decided that I loved painting more than I loved anything else and I figured out how to do it. I taught. I worked in an industrial design office.”

He worked for Wright for seven years before gaining a professorship at Parsons School of Design where he taught for 25 years.

“I wanted to be in my studio, but I had to pay the rent, I had to eat. At a certain point, Campbell’s soup meant more to me than it ever meant to Andy Warhol because I ate it every night,” he joked, adding that New York is the art capital of the world and he knew he had to be there.

Leonardi was awarded a McDowell Fellowship in 1964. In the early 1970s, Leonardi began visiting the East End, later purchasing his current house in Bridgehampton, which was once just a barn with dirt floors. Here is where he devoted himself to his experimental studio practice. Leonardi has exhibited his work in New York City, Florida, Pennsylvania, New Mexico, Connecticut and internationally in Japan, Paris and Venice. Locally, Leonardi is represented by The Drawing Room gallery on Main Street in East Hampton. Throughout his 60-year career, Leonardi has been an admirer of Giorgio Morandi and Mark Rothko to name just two. His advice to young artists is to keep making art.

Now, at 93, Leonardi is still in the studio every day, seven days a week. It’s the secret to living long, he said. “Even my doctor said, how did you do it? The answer is to never stop working.”

“I’m never bored,” he said. “The wonderful thing about living where I work, to leave the house, I have to walk through the studio, to get in, I have to walk through the studio. It is wonderful.”

Hector Leonardi’s “Light Passages” runs through February 25 at the Lyceum Gallery at the Suffolk County Eastern Campus, 121 Speonk-Riverhead Road in Riverhead. The gallery is in the Montaukett Learning Resource Center Library. A reception will be held on Thursday, February 16, from 4 to 6 p.m. and refreshments will be served. All are welcome to attend. Gallery hours are Monday through Thursday from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., Friday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Saturday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. and closed on Sundays. Call 631-548-2536 for additional information.