Devin Leonardi (American, 1981-2014) - Two Friends on the Shore of Long Island, 2009



Devin Leonardi
Missoula Art Museum

In 2014, Philipsburg-based artist Devin Leonardi tragically died. To honor his passing and share his artistic vision, MAM has worked closely with Altman Siegel Gallery in San Francisco and the artist’s family to present this selection of paintings.
Leonardi deftly uses 19th century photography as source material for his haunting landscape paintings. He investigates the complex relationship between painting and photography, a medium that came to prominence during modernity and challenged painting’s supremacy. By editing and re-presenting historical photographs, Leonardi interprets our collective record and comments on modernity as a causal force in the nation’s burgeoning expansion.
His atmospheric paintings elicit the precise aesthetic and illustrative realism of Thomas Eakins, Norman Rockwell, and Maxfield Parrish, and like these influences, revel in bucolic idealism. He positions historical subjects, however, as allegories and parables against anonymous western tropes to present a past that isn’t lost, but manifests as contemporary anxiety and fears of the changing future.