Leonardo Drew b. 1961

Drew was commissioned for a new outdoor project City in the Grass for Madison Square Park in summer 2019, marking the Madison Square Park Conservancy’s 38th public commission and the artist’s first major public outdoor art project. City in the Grass was presented as a solo exhibition in three museums, the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, Connecticut (2021); Mississippi Museum of Art, Jackson (2020); and North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh (2020). Other solo exhibitions include Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, California (2020); University of Massachusetts Amherst (2019); de Young Museum, Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, California (2017); Palazzo Delle Papesse, Centro Arte Contemporanea, Siena, Italy (2006); and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C. (2000). Drew’s mid-career survey, Existed, premiered at the Blaffer Gallery at the University of Houston in 2009, and traveled to the Weatherspoon Art Museum in Greensboro, North Carolina, and the DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum in Lincoln, Massachusetts. Drew was also commissioned for two major site-responsive works permanently installed at San Francisco International Airport, Harvey Milk Terminal 1, and at the Facebook Headquarters, Menlo Park, California respectively.  In 2022, Drew was elected as a National Academician by the National Academy of Design.

Drew was born in 1961 in Tallahassee, Florida, and he grew up in Bridgeport, Connecticut. He currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.

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