Women’s History Month Art Event Honors Artist Mira Lehr

Featuring all new works by Lehr never exhibited before, on view now through April 20th at the Hotel’s new 16th floor gallery space

Panel discussion event about Women in the Arts will premiere the worldwide release of new 400-page international volume about Mira Lehr by Skira Editore, one of the world’s leading art book publishers

In the 1950s in New York, Mira Lehr was a trailblazer in the male-dominated art scene while raising a young family. Now, in her sixth decade of artmaking and at the bold age of 87, Mira Lehr is the subject of an art exhibition honoring Women's History Month at the Kimpton EPIC Hotel Miami that continues through April 20th. She is creating more new work now than ever before, and inspiring new generations.

When Lehr moved from New York to Miami in 1961, Lehr was shocked at how women artists were treated so she founded one of the country's first artist collectives for women. It was called Continuum, and it thrived in Miami for 35 years. Lehr's visionary leadership is celebrated as a precursor to Art Basel Miami Beach, and helped shape the evolution of the art scene.

The Kimpton EPIC Hotel, one of Miami’s leading boutique hotels, presents a new art exhibition celebrating Women’s History Month titled Mira Lehr: Continuum, on view now through April 20th.

The nationally acclaimed, eco-feminist artist is celebrated for co-founding Continuum in 1961, one of America’s first art collectives for women artists. It thrived for more than 30 years, and her vision to kickstart the local art scene influenced the evolution of the visual arts in Miami.

The Hotel created its new EPIC Art initiative to advance the works of local artists and provide its visitors an insider’s look into the destination’s vibrant art scene.

Critics praise Mira Lehr as the real-life Marvelous Mrs. Maisel of the male-dominated art scenes in 1950s New York and 1960s Miami.

Now, at the bold age of 87, Lehr is creating more new work now than ever before in her six decades of artmaking. The all-new works in this exhibition have never been exhibited before and were created by Lehr in 2022 and 2021.

Lehr is now gaining even more national and international acclaim, and she is the subject of a major new 400-page artist monograph book by Skira Editore, celebrating its worldwide release in April.

The exhibition is on view through April 20th, and will feature a panel discussion event about the role women artists played in the evolution of Miami's art scene.

The moderator of this event will be The Miami Herald’s Jane Wooldridge, and the panel features some of South Florida’s groundbreaking cultural leaders, including: Lorie Mertes (Executive Director of Locust Projects, formerly of the National Museum of Women in the Arts); Melissa Diaz (Cultural Arts Curator of the Deering Estate); Vivian Donnell Rodriguez (former Director of Miami-Dade County Art in Public Places, now on the Palm Beach County Public Art Board); Diane Robinson (filmmaker); and Ombretta Agro (curator, environmental activist, and Executive Director of ARTSail).

The public will have the opportunity to meet the artist at this panel discussion, where she will sign advance copies of the new 400-page book by Skira Editore, the renowned art book publisher. Learn more about this major new international monograph honoring Mira Lehr at skira.net/en/books/mira-lehr-arc-of-nature-the-complete-monograph.

“Mira Lehr blazed trails as a woman artist in the 1950s during the male-dominated art scenes in New York and Miami during the mid-century era,” says Ericka Nelson, general manager of Kimpton EPIC Hotel and director of operations for Kimpton’s Florida hotels.

“Today, sixty years later, Lehr is recognized as one of the early influencers who helped Miami become an epicenter of creativity and diversity, and her new art continues to inspire new generations throughout her six decades of propelling the art movement forward. The launch of our Hotel’s EPIC Art initiative has infused the visual arts into the guest experience ‒ paying homage to the extraordinary creative talent that has served to make our city a cultural destination,” adds Nelson.

From 1956 to 1960, Mira Lehr had her art studio at Carnegie Hall in New York while she also raised a young family. She had just graduated from Vassar College in 1956 with a degree in Art History, under the mentorship of Linda Nochlin, the renowned feminist art historian.

While in New York, Lehr studied painting within the Hans Hofmann circle, and met many of the great American artists of that famed time in New York ‒ including Helen Frankenthaler, Joan Mitchell, Lee Krasner, James Brooks, Ludwig Sander, and Robert Motherwell.

Then, in December of 1960, she moved her family back to Miami Beach. “I was shocked at the lack of an art scene in Miami in 1960, especially for women artists,” said Mira Lehr.

“So we decided to take matters into our own hands and banded together our group of women artists to form Continuum as a working co-op to showcase women artists when no one else would, and it thrived for more than 30 years,” adds Lehr.

“We learned on our own how to create opportunities for ourselves, to display our work via DIY exhibitions throughout the 1960s, the 1970s and 1980s, an era in the art world that would be difficult for today's young artists to imagine.”

In honor of Women’s History Month, one of the new paintings in this exhibition is titled Julia’s Prophecy (for Julia Tuttle). Known as “the mother of Miami,” Tuttle was pivotal in pioneering the City of Miami in the 1890s.

The Hotel is located near the very spot where Julia Tuttle first settled.

New techniques and discoveries have paved the way for new visions and experiments in her art, and this exhibition thrives on that sense of newness for Mira Lehr.
“I am grateful to have been selected for this art exhibition honoring Women’s History Month, and to share this new series of works, some definitely representing a departure point,” says Mira Lehr.

“I no longer feel as though I have those Masters of art history sitting on my shoulders, watching what I am doing. I am more of an explorer now. I can now create in a more powerful way. I find that this realization often comes late in life, after a long career and I believe my sixty years of work has made me, in Hans Hofmann’s words, ‘search for the real’ in a more profound way,” says Mira Lehr.