“Generation Mel,” an exhibition dedicated to painter and longtime MCCC professor Mel Leipzig, features artwork by several of his former students and is on display at MCCC’s Art Gallery on the West Windsor Campus through February 27.
The exhibition highlights Leipzig’s long career at Mercer County Community College and the impact he had on students over several decades, bringing together work from artists he taught throughout his time at the college.
Leipzig taught at MCCC for 45 years, working with students both inside and outside the classroom.
Lucas Kelly, MCCC’s gallery director and dean of Arts and Communication, discussed the exhibition and Leipzig’s legacy. Kelly was also one of Leipzig’s former students and colleagues.
Kelly said Leipzig “would run out of the classroom, come all the way back to his office, grab an art book, run all the way back to the painting studio across campus, and open it up just to show a student a picture, and in that picture, it might be just one little part of the painting that he wants to show. The black ribbon on Olympia’s neck in Manet’s Olympia, just to show how that black ribbon works in that painting.”
Leipzig’s influence is reflected throughout the exhibition. According to Kelly, the Gallery at MCCC is booked out a couple of years in advance; however, when the show was presented to the staff as part of an organized series of exhibitions in celebration of Leipzig’s 90th birthday, the gallery staff moved exhibitions to make “Generation Mel” happen.
Karolina Zbaski, gallery coordinator and professor of visual art and digital media arts, explained the exhibition’s title.
“There are so many generations within this one exhibition. I mean, he [Leipzig] taught from the ’70s, maybe the ’60s, until, like, again, 2010, 2013. So a lot of influence, within the years of just artists building up their skills with Mel.”
Unlike other exhibitions at the gallery, “Generation Mel” was shaped directly by Leipzig before his passing.
Kelly said, “Mel actually selected the people who are in the show, from the 55 years that he taught here.”
Isabella Lentz, a student at Mercer and a staff member at the gallery, shared her perspective on Leipzig’s legacy in the exhibition.
“I think it [the Exhibition] mainly shows his teachings in the students. Because I remember I looked at… the Instagram post for one of the paintings, Transition of the Martyr, and the painter, Khalilah Sabree, said that Mel taught her that a painting should invite you in. And when I was looking at the paintings, I felt that sensation.”
Aileen Lutz, a student at Mercer and a staff member at the gallery, described learning about Leipzig through the exhibition.
“As a student who didn’t know [Leipzig]… It’s been very cool to learn little bits and pieces about him through the artwork as well as through people coming to the gallery.”
Through the exhibition, the collection of paintings reflects Leipzig’s work as both a realist painter and a professor at MCCC.
Kelly said, “…To talk about, like, one generation or another generation, the way we say… Gen X, or Millennial, or Boomers, this kind of transcended all of that. And so Mel had somewhat created his own generation of painters.”
