June 18 – July 8, 2011
Opening: Saturday, June 18, 10am – 6pm
GALLERY GEVIK
12 Hazelton Ave
Toronto, ON M5R 2E2
T: 416.968.0901
Hours: Tues – Sat 10-6
E-mail: natasha@gevik.com
www.gevik.com
It’s the first Toronto retrospective of Montreal-born Sylvia Lefkovitz (1924-1987). She started her career in Canada, but then travelled to Italy in 1960 to learn the “lost wax” bronze sculpture casting proces. The exhibition features paintings and sculptures from her time in Italy.
Lefkovitz is renowned for her murals, graphics, oils, drawings, lithos and sculpture rendered in bronze, silver and marble. Lefkovitz was described by one critic as “having an affinity with the earth.” Another termed her work “profoundly humane.” She mastered mural technique while living in Mexico, and applied it to her series of murals on the “Life of Louis Riel” (on permanent exhibition in North Battleford, Saskatchewan), and “The Acadians,” now housed at Ste-Anne’s University in Nova Scotia.
Lefkovitz moved to Italy in 1960, and soon won Florence’s Porcellino Award as Best Resident Foreign Artist; critical acclaim throughout the country quickly followed. After a long series of Italian exhibits and retrospectives and two decades of awards and commissions in both Europe and North America, Lefkovitz returned to Montreal in 1981. She died there in 1987.
Sylvia Lefkovitz’s life and work in both Italy and Canada were profiled in the National Film Board of Canada’s documentary “In Search of Medea.”