Anne Leith’s plein-air paintings are an exuberant expression of a will to create a greater, organized whole from the chaos of nature. Leith’s mark-making velocity and vibrant colors (often accentuated with silver or gold leaf) race to capture the startling flashes of brilliant light found in the forest. Anne Leith seeks to bend space and time with a vigorous response to the intimacy of the solitary self and its attentive relationship to the vastness of nature.
Anne Leith is a painter of places, both plein-air and imaginary. The landscape is integral to her practice and the personal immersion into a greater whole is her over-arching aesthetic. There is a curious vibrating balance between the recognizable image, its abstraction, and that moment of achieving a beautiful painted surface.
Often incorporating metallic leaf into the rich, gestural, oil-painted surface, Leith creates a dynamic other-worldly dimension. Reflecting color and light, shifting from light to dark the gold or silver metal evokes traditional religious icons as well as a futuristic ever-shifting fourth dimension as rivers appear to flow and clouds to rise and unfurl.
This balance between the outer and inner worlds and the passion channeled through the powerful, gestural brushwork dissolves any separation between the self and the world.
Leith spends her time painting nature and places, both in the plain air tradition and in the studio. With an MFA from the University of Pennsylvania and an MA in Contemporary Art History, she credits other artists as her teachers and inspiration. Leith is a professor of art in several colleges and art centers in the Philadelphia area and creates video documentaries and oral histories.
Anne Leith has extensive experience as an artist, videographer, director, art historian and painter. As a painter, Leith has exhibited extensively in the Philadelphia metropolitan region and most recently at the Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild in Woodstock,NY. Anne Leith's artwork has been featured in the magazine Philadelphia Stories and her professional experience includes Manager of International Projects at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York and as an International curator for contemporary art at NextMonet.com, an e-commerce art sales company. Leith was Sotheby’s Institute scholarship intern at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, Italy and is currently a Member of ArtTable, Inc., an organization of women professionals in the arts. Anne Leith earned her Bachelor of Arts in Studio Arts from Mills College, Oakland CA, a Masters of Fine Arts in Painting from the University of Pennsylvania and a Masters in Art History from Sotheby’s Institute in London and the University of Manchester, England
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FOREST BATHING | Group Show about Nature at Opus 40
Opus 40 Gallery June 13 - July 21, 2025 Opus 40 | 356 George Sickle Road, Saugerties NY · 12477Forest Bathing, or Shinrin-Yoku, is a concept that originated in Japan in the 1980s as an antidote to an increasingly technological and alienating world. The idea is to mindfully walk...Read more -
I FORESTI · Venice, Italy
Anne Leith, Robin McClintock, Martin Weinstein & Millicent Young April 19 - June 23, 2024 Castello Spaces | Castello 925(Venice, IT)- In Venetian dialect, the word for “foreigner” is “foresti” or “someone from the forest”. I Foresti , the group exhibition at Castello 925 , plays on this vernacular...Read more -
Forest Bathing
A Group Exhibition About Nature January 15 - February 27, 2022FOREST BATHING - A Group Exhibition about Nature Woodstock, NY - Forest Bathing is a concept that originated in Japan in the 1980’s as an antidote to an increasingly technological...Read more
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FOREST BATHING | Opening Reception at Opus 40
June 15, 2025Join us for a reception on the grounds of the historic contemporary art venue - OPUS 40 - for the group exhibition, FOREST BATHING. This...Read more -
ARTIST RESIDENCY IN TUSCANY
Greve-in-Chianti | ITALY June 14 - 27, 2025Join us this summer for a special artist residency in Tuscany (June 14 -27). This program is for artists who want uninterrupted time to create...Read more -
FOREST LIFE | ABITARE LA PROPRIA FORESTA
Art Therapy Laboratory with Dott.ssa Rebeca Macià June 22, 2024FOREST LIFE | ABITARE LA PROPRIA FORESTA Laboratorio di Arteterapia per adulti Art Therapy for Adults Laboratory Date: June 22 on the occasion of Art...Read more