Leo2899's Comments (61)

This special creation is my all time favorite from fourth grade! Which one do you like the best? Thanks so much for making such great art we can wear on t shirts! We love you!!

Oh Leo! We love love love this Ying and Yang design! Your Black Hills gramps will be wearing another favorite t shirt the next time we see you!

What a calm and tranquil work of art. It takes me back to a different time and era of peace, love and psychedelia.

Leo, this was very clever! The way you imagine is impressive. Keep up all your great artwork.

Wow! I love the design detail and color!! Leo, which art project in 4th grade is your favorite? I love you and can't wait to see you soon!

Hey, Leo! Oh man, I love this creative design of multiple textures and color! Grampa is wearing a grey t shirt and I have a white one!! Hope you are enjoying art classes in 4th grade! Love, Gramma in the Hills

Oh Leo! I love how you made the leafless tree branches reflect in a Minnesota lake on a sunny day! What is the pictures title? So glad to order more tee shirts, notebooks, drawing books,, and holiday greeting cards to support the arts at New City School? Gramma in the Hills

Leo, I love this beautiful weaving design! I've never seen anything like it, bravo ?? love it!!

AWESOME!

After an incredible amount of time, master Leo Lahr surprises us with an unexpected new work of art. And look what progress this young promising artist has made! He went from 2-dimensional drawings to a three dimensional piece, almost like an objet trouvé. Leo Lahr in his time of absence was clearly influenced by the dadaist movement of the 1920s, which gives his artistic career a new dimension, both literally and figuratively. Welcome back!

Awesome Leo, marvelous design!!

I love this! It makes me feel happy.

Mr. Leo Lahr, Your art work caught my attention! I like the colors and I have the feeling that I’m looking at something mysterious. Good job!

Hi Leo! It is so fun to see your art! I’m glad it can be shared this way. It is a bright spot in my day. Love you! Auntie Macey

Hey Leo I love this wonderful bear you created. Is it papa bear? Or maybe Yogi Bear? Hope you are creating more art while your school is closed Today I am wearing my poison dart frog t shirt you made?? ! I love you

Leo, you did an super job depicting a bear! Looks like he/she is trying to decide to go outside or not. Going to run out of room on the refrigerator for magnets of your artwork. Keep up the excellent work!! Grandpa with Glory B & Maggie May.

Leo my main man, this rocks my socks! Art is good for the soul.

Dear Leo, I'm so very proud of your artistic ability. What a wonderful and fun skill you have learned and will always be able to enjoy as you grow up!! Perhaps you can teach Grandma a thing or two???? I love Pandas and I love and miss you, Grandma with Glory B and Maggie Mae?

It's been a while since he posted pictures of his work online. Rumor has it the famous American artist Leo wasn't able to cope with the huge amount of success for a long time. Money, women and all the gossip that's involved in being such an enigmatic pioneer of the postmodern art world seemed to get the better of him. Even the infamous artist Banksy was surprised to see Leo dissappear for such a long time. But now he's s back and once again Leo doesn't disappoint his loyal audience. '2nd Grade Van Gogh Sunflowers' shows an enormous shift from his earlier work into some unexpected new dimension. Leo's new work shows a world of vivid yellow colours and distorted perspectives that seems to beg the beholder to join the artist in his own 2nd grade universe. And boy, they do.

Dream House is one of the first major works by Leo Lahr painted in Grade One of the New City School. Imbuing the landscape with movement and emotion, he renders the scene with a palette of vividly contrasting colors and pencil strokes that leads the viewer through the painting. Leo Lahr distorts and flattens out the architecture of the house and depicts it brightly lit in nightly darkness - which reflects his own complex relationship to his new life in Grade One. In the yellow windows Leo Lahr conveys a sense that true happiness is found inside the house, not in the building itself. The use of the acidic tones and the darkness of the night sky alludes to the impending excitement that Leo Lahr's new house has brought to him.
-- Mark

Hi Leo! I have such a great time looking at your artwork! Thanks for sharing! XOXO, Auntie Macey
-- Macey

Oh Leo, my favorite of all! I remember taking you to see the original when your mom carried you in a wrap!! I love your version even more!! Ordered cards to share your artwork!
-- Your Grammy Kristi

My favorite creature and your rendering of a dragon is spot on. Thanks for sharing your art! Grandpa (Glory B & Maggie May)
-- David

I love art by Marc Chagall and your artwork, Leo, gives me the same vibe I get from the orginal. Thank you!
-- Lorinda

Leo, I'm so happy to see the drawing you did of the Great Wall of China!! What a fantastic structure, wouldn't it be fun to see it in person. Love the stars in the sky, makes me happy! Love Gma with Glory B
-- Nancy

The entire heroic history of poised, triumphal soldier portraiture, a history that has included Verrocchio, Rubens, David and many others, seems to be under serious threat of destabilisation in this rapidly executed portrait – the young Leo Lahr was said to have painted it in just a few days when he was just 5 years old – of one of the soldiers of the famous 'terracotta army'. It is a double-edged sword, this portrait, a huge – the size almost overwhelms us – example of bluff, near-cinematic triumphalism at first glance, which declines, as we examine it detail by detail, into something much more fearful, pent and anxious. It is a portrait of self-exposure on the battlefield, of a lone man on the verge of battle, of the anticipation of the ignominious snuffing out of martial ambition. One might say there is a bit of self portraiture in this one. A five year old ready to grow up and conquer primary school.
-- Mark

In a steep, rocky landscape, stands the Sphinx. This monster, with the face, head, and shoulders of a woman, a lion's body, and bird's wings, is standing in the shadows of a cave. The Greek hero Oedipus is giving the solution to the riddle that the Sphinx has asked him, as he has asked all travelers passing through this region of Thebes. When the monster asked him: "What is it that has a voice and walks on four legs in the morning, on two at noon, and on three in the evening?" Oedipus answered that it was man who, as a child crawls on all fours, as an adult walks on two legs, and in old age uses a stick as a third leg. Leo Lahr shows the Sphinx in front of some pyramids, as a reminder of the big questions in life. Some may remain unanswered, some might give us deeper insights in who we are and where fate brings us.
-- Mark

Leo, You are exploring ancient Egypt in your current artwork, which is one of Grandpa's favorite periods of history. Your depiction of King Tut is very good. I look forward to seeing other artwork. Grandpa David with Glory B & Maggie May
-- David

I really like this, Leo. The blue background is a lovely contrast to the skeleton.
-- Lorinda

This really moves me, man.
-- Lorinda

Leo, I am so very proud of your drawing ability in the 1st grade. Your self portrait is so fun and engaging, just loved your face, especially your expressive beautiful eyes Love,. Grandma with Glory B and Maggie Mae
-- Nancy

This work represents something of a stylistic departure for Leo Lahr, in that historical architecture is being painted. Offering a celebration of the history of architecture, Leo Lahr admires the great works of the past, implicitly suggesting that the American state might inherit and build on the cultural traditions which those works represent. Discussing this aspect of the painting the art historian Mark van Berlo states that "the artist, fulfilled his function in society by calling to mind the highest achievements of the past as a way to guide society through the present and into the future. Such a point of view suggests that America might become the new Egypt, an improved version of classical civilization."
-- Mark

Oh man! Its so great to see your artwork in first grade. What a fantastic self portraiture now that you are six years old! I love how you drew your eyes!
-- Your grammy in the hills

Leo Lahr constantly pushes the boundaries of acceptability with confrontational works, mostly devoid of the traditional props associated with portraiture or the paraphernalia of life, intended to give clues as to the sitter’s personality. By contrast, and using a pared down lexicon of profoundly expressive drawn lines, Leo Lahr’s portraits present an intense insight in to the human condition. The work of Leo Lahr aptly illustrates what in the field of drawing is referred to as “meaningful marks”. It refers to the manner in which drawing (freed from academic convention) is, like music, a most immediate form of human expression.
-- Mark

Leo Lahr’s masterpiece Diego Rivera Flower Carrier comes in the typical of the vibrantly colorful style of Leo Lahr, the canvas glows with intense colors. A flame-colored sky burns orange, green and blue. Yellow, the color of sunlight, is everywhere. The painting's title comes from the road that curves through the scene from the lower right. Leo Lahr's freedom from the constraints of expressing the objective world is celebrated in this image. It is a fantasy in color, a place where reality is overrun by the decorative impulse. Diego Rivera Flower Carrier serves as a milestone in the brief, yet crucial art-historical period in kindergarten, which explored the central tenet of Minnesotan painting: that the strength of a picture has more to do with colors and the kinds of marks made on the surface of the canvas than with serving as a window on the world.
-- Mark

Hi, Leo! Oh my gosh, you have learned so much about shapes and color in kindergarten!! Cant wait for you to tell us all about this drawing you made! I love you
-- Grammy Kristi

Oh Leo! I can't wait for you to tell me all about this one! Its so much fun to see what you've learned in art class this year. I love you!
-- Gramma Kristi

On the moral plane, we can read Leo Lahr's character in his own rendition: willful, reserved, passionate, and agitated. We need only to look at him to understand why he threw himself into the task of drawing a Mona Lisa Self Portrait with such fervor; above all, we understand--and this may be the most interesting psychological aspect of the work--how Leo was simultaneously a pupil and an artist. His scrutinizing gaze flashes with both acumen and eagerness. He had the gift of seeing more intensely than other people; he has an inquisitive air about him. He tried to make his rendering more forceful. Finally, an almost fierce passion can be seen in his gaze, the passion to penetrate reality, to discover its meaning and purpose. The portraitist wanted to grasp the core of human nature, the history painter wanted to give it an ideal form.
-- Mark

A giant fish is surrounded by blue water. Some of Leo Lahr's iconography grew out of his kindergarten education; the gills here point confrontationally toward a stylized head, possibly alluding to human consciousness. Although they are often enigmatic, Leo Lahr believes his personal interest in sea life has wide connotations: "The object grows beyond its appearance through our knowledge of its inner being, through the knowledge that the thing is more than its outward aspect suggests."
-- Mark

Leo Lahr Miller-Geffre draws awesome pictures of marine life!!!
-- Gramma Kristi

Leo, the poison dart frog is just a beautiful purple so he looks like a majestic king of the frogs!! Hope you continue to have fun in art class, wish I could come and see you at your school, miss you! Grandma with Glory B and Maggie Mae.
-- Nancy

Hi Leo!!! I love your salamander drawing, it's very realistic and maybe a little scary! I enjoy seeing all your artwork, helps Grandma keep up with what cool things you are doing in school, love you!???
-- Nancy

Created as part of his experimentation with a linear style of painting, this work shows his interest in the form of the oval. "The oval," claims Leo Lahr, "is the synthesis of the greatest oppositions. It combines the concentric and the eccentric in a single form and in equilibrium. Of the three primary forms, it points most clearly to the fourth dimension." He relies upon the varied possibilities of interpretation for the circle to create a sense of spiritual and emotional harmony in this work. The diverse dimensions and bright hues of each circle bubble up through the canvas and are balanced through Leo Lahr's careful juxtapositions of proportion and color. The dynamic movement of the round forms evokes their universality - from the stars in the cosmos to drops of dew; the oval is a shape integral to life.
-- Mark

The hare represents the safety and security Leo Lahr feels at kindergarten. This composition is an early example of his use of color symbolism, a technique that had been pioneered by van Gogh. Van Gogh used color to represent emotion, but in his paintings identifiable features of the natural world remained. Leo Lahr built upon van Gogh's emotional use of color, by using colors to humanize natural forms in the landscape. His repetition of color connects the animal with their background. Leo Lahr also uses color and line repetition with the large hare. The hare dominates the foreground of the dreamlike composition, exuding a mood of blissful serenity as it leaps over the orange surface in the foreground. The repetition of color and line throughout reverberate with a sense of energy as well as safety and happiness.
-- Mark

Heh Leo, I Love your Salamander!!!
-- Grandpa Lee

The calm, dreamlike world of Amphibian Study: Salamander, is here replaced with a restless tension. The salamander, whose bodily strength is represented with intersecting shards of color and acute angles, is tightly contained within the bold, black outline. The surrounding space is similarly electrified. Leo Lahr depicts the salamander in a moment just before attack; it is ready to break out of whatever is restraining it. There is a sense of a violent threat. The calmness and security of his earlier work is altogether absent in this work.
-- Mark

This work leads us to a crucial consideration regarding Leo Lahr's cut outs, best surmised in an appropriate line, both in subject and meaning, from WB Yeats’s 'Among School Children': “O body swayed to music, O brightening glance,/How can we know the dancer from the dance?” Much as we might feign otherwise, there is little possibility of, or point to, separating the work from the man. There is an aura that exists, whether we admit it or not, to art created by such an artist. It is fashionable to bemoan the cult of personality, but the person and their stories matter. We are, after all, narrative creatures.
-- Mark

This feeling provides a contrast that enhances the impact of Mixed Media Oval Tracings, a maelstrom of swirling colors and soaring lines. The painting is divided abruptly in the center by many thick, black vertical lines. On the top, a violent motion is expressed through the profusion of sharp, jagged and entangled red lines. On the bottom, all is calm, with sweeping forms and purple color harmonies. We have followed Leo Lahr's intention that our initial reaction should result from the emotional impact of the pictorial forms and colors. However, upon closer inspection the apparent abstraction of this work proves illusory.
-- Mark

Oh Leo I Love your winter scene! It reminds me of another great Dutch artist!! Grandpa Lee
-- Lee

Each dizzying adventure begins with an elementary form. A dot is a start. It can be an eye, a mouth or the life-giving sun. Two more and a whole landscape is implied. The dot turns into a line, which becomes a tightrope, a boulevard, the perch for an avian assembly or the tranquil surface of the lake. Twenty more lines, streaming in parallel across a page, and you have a ploughed field or a river that eddies with the slightest fluctuation. A triangle arrives, and the scene now takes in a pyramid, a temple, a gigantic nose or a passing yacht. The triangle converts into an arrow, the arrow meets two more of its kind in other colours, arriving from different directions. Mixed Media Triangle Tracings, this picture is charmingly titled, as if to point out (as arrows do) that a piquant encounter is taking place.
-- Mark

Leo Lahr's early career paintings are light, high chroma, and worked briskly with broad brushstrokes. Accordingly his trees have quite solid canopies, with gesturally-marked trunks and branches, where the latter are visible. While he uses a range of colours across foliage, more subtle effects such as the textural differences between species are also apparent.
-- Mark

Oh man, Leo! This color and design of squares is awesome! Lime green is one of my favorite colors! Its so fun to see what you are learning in kindergarten!
-- Gramma Kristi

Oh Leo!! Your artwork is marvelous! We love you
-- Gramma Kristi

Love love your line grid drawing! You sure are learning some fun things in school. Have a Merry Christmas Leo, Gma and Gpa will miss you?
-- Nancy

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas! Very nice!!
-- David

Leo, blue is my favorite color, I love this drawing! I miss you very much, Love Grandma with Glory B
-- Nancy

Hi Leo, thanks for your pictures! Will see you soon.
-- Grandpa Gold

Oh Leo, grampa and gramma are excited to visit and hear all about your art projects! See you soon
-- Kristi

Art does not happen, it is created. Love your creation Leo!! Glory B & Maggie May Grandpa
-- David

Love this work! Is it for sale?
-- Mark

Leo, WOW! The rectangle picture is beautiful!
-- Gramma Kristi