Edward Leffingwell

Edward G. Leffingwell (December 3, 1941 – August 5, 2014), was an American art critic and curator, affiliated with MoMA/P.S.1 and Art in America and associated with avant-garde art.

Biography Leffingwell was born in Sharon, Pennsylvania, on December 3, 1941. In 1997 at P.S.1 he organized a retrospective of the work of artist and filmmaker Jack Smith ("Jack Smith: Flaming Creature: His Amazing Life and Times"). He also organized a show on James Rosenquist, and "About Place: Contemporary American Landscape" (1986).

Leffingwell spent four years in Los Angeles, directing the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery at Barnsdall Park from 1988 to 1992. There he organized an exhibition of George Herms, and a proposed biennial show, LAX: The Los Angeles Exhibition, a contemporary art exhibition spanning seven to eight institutions.

During this time Leffingwell became interested in and associated with Brazilian art and the São Paulo Art Biennial. For that biennial, he organized a show on the painter Neil Williams, one of long-time friends and associates.

Leffingwell wrote prolifically, penning hundreds of reviews and critical essays for Art in America, as well as contributing to scholarship on artist Lawrence Weiner, photographer Joe Deal, artist Judith Murray, Claude Monet and Jack Smith.

Leffingwell died from cardiac arrest in Flushing, Queens, on August 5, 2014, at the age of 72, after suffering from Parkinson's disease.

Biography Lawrence Weiner: AS FAR AS THE EYE CAN SEE (1960-2007) (2007) From Vibrato to Legato: Judith Murray (2006) Mario Cravo Neto: Laroye (2002) Flaming Creature: The Life and Time of Jack Smith, Artist, Performer, Exotic Consultant (1997)