June Leaf: People

A facsimile edition of Leaf’s book on her kinetic, airy metalwork sculptures, spanning 20 years of tireless creation

A facsimile reprint of a 1994 book on the work of American artist June Leaf (born 1929), People contains 20 years of Leaf’s small metalwork sculptures. Notably, several of the book’s photographs were taken by her late husband, the photographer Robert Frank.
Leaf has described her sculptures as drawings, their wiry forms carving and unfurling into space like exploratory lines on a page. Playing and fighting figures, animals and contraptions in the tinkering spirit of Jean Tinguely emerge from intuitive combinations of brass, copper and tin; found metal rods and blades; wood and paint. Regardless of her subject, Leaf’s focus is on visceral whimsy, movement and ceaseless renewal through material and process: “I think of myself as a dancer making art,” she says, “or an aviator making art.”