Leopold Segedin: Conflict & Confrontation
@ National Veterans Art Museum
4041 N Milwaukee Ave, 2nd floor, Chicago, IL 60641
Opening Thursday, January 23rd, from 5:30PM - 8:30PM
On view through Friday, October 17th
Leopold Segedin’s teaching credentials and artistic abilities possibly saved his life! Instead of being sent to fight in the Korean War he served stateside at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, teaching mechanical drawing (and painting a portrait of Dwight D. Eisenhower to avoid basic training!) His memories of his service are mostly positive ones, but it was reaction to the Vietnam War and the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago that inspired most of the paintings displayed in Leopold Segedin: Conflict & Confrontation. This powerful and provocative exhibit at the National Veterans Art Museum will surely linger with the viewer.
Leopold Segedin was born in Chicago in 1927, received his BFA (1948) and MFA (1950) from the University of Illinois. He has been an exhibiting artist since 1947.
“I’ve always felt that my paintings should speak for themselves. Words can point to what you should look at and create a context for what you see, but I don’t think that anyone can really communicate in words what works of art communicate any more than they can create in words the taste of a good wine. The experiences of – say – a painted, translucent red – of delicate lines and bold shapes – of dramatic, metaphoric images – are like – well – the tang of garlic in a good, kosher hot dog – if we can imagine such experiences as being more serious – more profound – than pleasurable. They have to be ‘tasted’ to be known. It is not an intellectual process, although some art critics have made their careers trying to describe and explain it. The meaning – the significance – of a painting is in the work itself – in the personal responses to the aesthetic and metaphoric qualities of the image. This does not mean that paintings don’t embody meanings beyond such intrinsic qualities of the paintings. Although paintings can be about any personal experience, I believe that important paintings should be about something important – about life – the human condition – about the world we live in.”
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Tags: Chicago, Conflict & Confrontation, Leopold Segedin, Leopold Segedin: Conflict & Confrontation, National Veterans Art Museum, Portage Park
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