Amazing Art: Mira Lehr and Art Basel

 

The nationally acclaimed artist Mira Lehr, celebrated as “the Godmother of Miami’s Art Scene,” has been selected for several prominent exhibitions, art fairs, events and launches during the eagerly awaited return of Art Basel Season this year in Miami.

Sixty years ago, when the pioneer eco-feminist artist co-founded one of America’s first-ever co-ops for women artists in 1961, it was hard to imagine during that male-dominated era how powerfully Lehr’s career would continue to take flight six decades later ― as such a force of nature.

At the bold age of 87, she is creating more new art than ever before. The demand for Lehr’s work is evident in the lineup of shows, museum acquisitions, commissions, and major events leading up to Miami Art Week 2021. International recognition of Lehr’s artistic trajectory rises to even greater heights this year ― Skira Editore, one of the world’s leading publishers of art books, will host a private invitation-only event during Art Basel Miami Beach to announce the new, 420-page book Mira Lehr: Arc of Nature, the Complete Monograph by Skira.  Festival-goers who attend the U.S. premiere of the Art with Me festival will come face to face with a new activation of Lehr’s creative vision in a dramatic setting right on the beach. The festival has chosen Lehr’s large-scale Mangrove Labyrinth sculptures for this year’s tribal gathering.  The Deering Estate has chosen Lehr for its season opener, with the new solo exhibition Mira Lehr: Regenerative Rhythms. Curated by Melissa Diaz, the show features all new works by Lehr created in 2021 that have never before been exhibited.  One of Lehr’s recent museum acquisitions is a monumental installation that will be exhibited for visitors to the art fairs front-and-center at a prime location in the heart of South Beach ― Sacred Dreams by Mira Lehr is comprised of 183 aerial sculptures. It was gifted to the Jewish Museum of Florida on Miami Beach during the pandemic closure by the collector Dr. Robert Feldman, and is now on view as a permanent museum installation. A detail of this ceiling installation is the cover of the new Skira book about Mira Lehr. About the Artist Mira Lehr  Mira Lehr’s solo and group exhibitions number more than 300. She is a graduate of Vassar College (1956) with a degree in Art History, under the mentorship of Linda Nochlin, the renowned feminist art historian. Lehr will be the subject of a new, 420-page international monograph by the leading art book publisher Skira Editore, to be published in the spring of 2022.  Lehr has been collected by major institutions across the U.S., including the Smithsonian Museum of American Art (Washington), the Getty Museum Research Center (Los Angeles), the Boca Raton Museum of Art, the Perez Art Museum Miami, the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center (NY), the Margulies Collection, the Mennello Museum of American Art, MOCA North Miami, the Jewish Museum of Florida-FIU, and the Orlando Museum of Art.