LESLIE HEWITT
Born in 1977 in New York, New York, USA
Lives and works between New York, NY and Houston, TX
contacter
Working with photography, sculpture, and site-specific installations, Leslie Hewitt addresses fluid notions of time. Her work oscillates between the illusionary potential of photography and the physical weight of sculpture. In her photographed arrangements, she isolates personal effects and the residue of material culture to consider the fragile nature of everyday life. Her approach to photography and sculpture revisits the still life genre from a post-minimalist/civil-rights perspective. Her geometric compositions, which she frames and crystallizes through the spare assemblage of ordinary things, suggests the porosity between intimate and sociopolitical lives. Whether discreetly arranged in conceptually entangled layers or presented plainly, Hewitt often includes or is inspired by mementos such as family pictures, as well as books and vintage magazines that reference the Black literary and popular-cultures of her upbringing. Her practice as an artist points to the mechanisms of the construction of meaning and memory through decisively challenging both by unfolding formal, rather than didactic, connections in her contrapuntal compositions and distinctive take on spatiality.
Hewitt studied at the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, the Yale University School of Art, and at New York University, where she was a Clark Fellow in the Africana and Visual Culture Studies programs. She was included in the 2008 Whitney Biennial and the recipient of the 2008 Art Matters research grant to the Netherlands. A selection of recent and forthcoming exhibitions include the Museum of Modern Art in New York; the Studio Museum in Harlem; Artists Space in New York; Project Row Houses in Houston; and LA > < ART in Los Angeles. Hewitt has held residencies at the Studio Museumin Harlem, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University and the American Academy in Berlin, Germany amongst others.
Born in 1977 in New York, New York, USA
Lives and works between New York, NY and Houston, TX
education
2004 Yale University, M.F.A.
2001–03 New York University, Africana Studies / Cultural Studies
2000 The Cooper Union, B.F.A.
solo shows
2025
- Soft Tremulous Light, Perrotin, New York, NY
- Leslie Hewitt: Achromatic Scales, Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, FL
2024
- New Waves, Perrotin, Los Angeles, CA
2023
- Please Stay Home: Darrell Ellis in Dialogue with Leslie Hewitt and Wardell Milan, Carpenter Center, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
- Leslie Hewitt, Perrotin, Paris, France
2022
- Index Array, Perrotin Tokyo, Japan
- Dia Bridgehampton, Bridgehampton, NY
- The Artist's Eye | Reading Room, Douglas Hyde Gallery, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland
2020
- Anatomy of a Flower and Other Studio Experiments, Perrotin, New York, NY
2019
- Reading Room, Perrotin, New York, NY
2018
- Perrotin, Paris, France
- Perrotin, Seoul, South Korea
2017
- Leslie Hewitt, Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York, NY
2016
- New Pictures: Leslie Hewitt, Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis MN
- Collective Stance: Featuring work in collaboration with Bradford Young, The Sculpture Center, Long Island City, NY
- Leslie Hewitt: Untitled, Olga Korper Gallery Inc, Toronto, Canada
- Collective Stance, The Power Plant, Toronto, Canada
2014
- Untitled (Structures): Leslie Hewitt in collaboration with Bradford Young, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL
2013
- Leslie Hewitt, Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York, NY
2012
- Leslie Hewitt: Sudden Glare of the Sun, Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, St. Louis, MO
- Untitled (Structures): Leslie Hewitt in collaboration with Bradford Young, Des Moines Art Center, Des Moines, IA; traveled to The Menil Collection, Houston, TX
2011
- Blue Skies, Warm Sunlight, D’Amelio Terras, New York, NY
- Momentum Series 15: Leslie Hewitt, The Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston, Boston, MA
2010
- Untitled (Level): Leslie Hewitt in collaboration with Bradford Young, Studio Museum Harlem, New York, NY
- Leslie Hewitt: On Beauty, Objects, and Dissonance, The Kitchen, New York, NY
2009
- Riffs On Real Time, Clough-Hanson Gallery, Rhodes College, Memphis, TN
- Art Statements, Art 40 Basel, Basel, Switzerland
- the everyday, Hessel Museum of Art at Bard College CCS, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY
2007
- Replica of a Lost Original, Artists Space, New York, NY
- Leslie Hewitt: It’s Just a Feeling, D’Amelio Terras, New York, NY
2006
- Make it Plain, LAXART, Los Angeles, CA
group shows
2026
- Watts Per Lumen, curated by Sophie Landres, The Samuel Dorsky Museum at SUNY New Paltz, New Paltz, NY (forthcoming)
- MoCP at Fifty: Collecting Through the Decades, Musuem of Contemporary Photography at Columbia College Chicago, Chicago, IL
2025
- No Vacancy, The Historic Hampton House, Miami, FL (forthcoming)
- Ground Work, Sean Kelly Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
- Something in the Water, MAXXI Museum, Rome, Italy
- Primary Frequencies, Efrain Lopez Gallery, New York, NY
- All That Remains, Sugar Hill Children’s Museum of Art and Storytelling, New York, NY
- FEMMES, curated by Pharrell Williams, Perrotin, Paris, France
- Alice Coltrane, Monument Eternal, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA
- Riffs on Real Time, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, MO
- A Movement in Every Direction: Legacies of the Great Migration, Chicago Center for Cultural Affairs, Chicago, IL
2024
- Avant-Garde and Liberation: Contemporary Art and Decolonial Modernism, Mumok, Vienna, Austria
- Abstraction after Modernism: Recent Acquisitions, The Menil Collection, Houston, TX
- A Movement in Every Direction: Legacies of the Great Migration, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley, CA
- Messengers, Moss Arts Center, Virginia Tech University, Blacksburg, VA
- RETROaction, Hauser & Wirth, Los Angeles, CA
2023
- RETROaction, Hauser & Wirth, New York, NY
- Six Scenes from Our Future, Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, Houston, TX
- A Movement in Every Direction: Legacies of the Great Migration, California African American Art Museum, Los Angeles, CA
- The Weight of Words, Henry Moore Institute, Leeds, United Kingdom
- Black and White - An Achromatic Group Show (Of Paintings), Collaborations by Tania and Thomas Asbæk, Copenhagen, Denmark
- A Movement in Every Direction: Legacies of the Great Migration, Brooklyn Musuem, New York, NY
- The weather is uncertain tonight, as is my soul, University of Applied Arts Vienna, Heiligenkreuzerhof, Vienna, Austria
2022
- Wet Conceptualism, The Opening Gallery, New York, NY
- Photographic Pictures, curated by Anne Collier, Anton Kern Gallery, New York, NY
- Currency: Photography Beyond Capture, 8th Edition of the Triennial of Photography Hamburg, curated by Koyo Kouoh, Rasha Salti, Gabriella Beckhurst Feijoo, and Oluremi C. Onabanjo, with Cale Garrido; Deichtorhallen Hamburg, Germany
- A Movement in Every Direction: Legacies of the Great Migration, Mississippi Art Museum, Jackson, MI; Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD
- Lux et Veritas, curated by Bonnie Clearwater, NSU Art Museum, Fort Lauderdale, FL
- Elegies: Still Lifes in Contemporary Art, curated by Monique Long, Museum of the African Diaspora, San Francisco, CA; Telfair Museum, Savannah, GA
- Dwellers pt. I, curated by Lucien Terras, Perrotin New York, NY
- Dwellers pt. II, curated by Lucien Terras, Perrotin Paris, France
- Family Album: Dannielle Bowman, Janna Ireland and Contemporary Works from LACMA, LACMA Charles White Elementary School Gallery, Los Angeles, California
2021
- There is a Woman in Every Color: Black Women in Art, Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Brunswick, ME
- Family Album, Los Angeles County Musuem of Art (LACMA), Los Angeles, CA
- Red, curated by Nico Wheadon, Welancora Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
- Mining the Archive, Yancey Richardson, New York, NY
- There's, There, There, Hauser & Wirth, Southampton, New York
- Off The Record, organized by Ashley James, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY
- Just looking, Still looking, Always looking, Aranya Art Center, Qinhuangdao, China
- La Boîte-en-Valise, curated by Wim Peeters and Marie Denkens, virtual exhibition by Office Baroque: https://www.la-boite-en-valise.com
2020
- Radical Empathy, Compound, Los Angeles, CA
- Pictures, Revisited, curated by Douglas Eklund, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
- On the Basis of Art: 150 Years of Women at Yale, Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT
- Uptown Triennial 2020, Wallach Art Gallery, Columbia University, New York, NY
- Storage_, Storage Projects, New York, NY
- Sculpture Milwaukee, Milwaukee, WI
- American Women: The Infinite Journey, curated by Marie Maertens, La Patinoire Royale, Brussels, Belgium
2019
- Place, Hiram Butler Gallery, Houston, TX
- Prisoner of Love, curated by Naomi Beckwith, MCA Chicago, IL
- Hinge Pictures: Eight Women Artists Occupy the Third Dimension, curated by Andrea Andersson, Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans, LA
2018
- The 57th Carnegie International, The Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, PA
- Out of Easy Reach, curated by Allison Glenn, Gallery 400 at University of Illinois in collaboration with DePaul Art Museum and Rebuild Foundation, Chicago, IL; will travel to Grunwald Gallery at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana
- Screenscapes, curated by Vik Muniz, Barney Kulok and Lucas Blalock, Galeria Nara Roesler, São Paulo, Brazil
- Nothing Stable under Heaven, The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA
2017
- Out of Easy Reach, curated by Allison Glenn, Gallery 400 in collaboration with DePaul Art Museum and Rebuild Foundation, Chicago, IL
- An unassailable and monumental dignity, Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival, Toronto, Canada
- Woman with a Camera, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL
- Fond Illusions, Perrotin, New York, NY
- The 11th White Columns Annual, White Columns, New York, NY
2016
- Resistance, Protest, Resilience, Minneapolis Institute of Art Minneapolis, MN
- Crisis of Presence, Pori Art Museum, Pori, Finland
- A Matter of Memory: Photography as Object in the Digital Age, George Eastman Museum, Rochester, NY
- Ordinary Pictures, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN
- Human Interest: Portraits from the Whitney’s Collection, Whitney Museum of American Art
- Line of Flight, The Wallach Art Gallery, Columbia University, New York, NY
- Statements: African American Art from the Museum’s Collection, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Houston, TX
- Signal Noise, Simon Preston Gallery, New York, NY
2015
- Jennie C. Jones, Josephine Halvorson, Leslie Hewitt, Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York, NY
- Time/ Image, Blaffer Art Museum, University of Houston, Houston, TX
- A Story within a Story, Göteborg International Biennial for Contemporary Art (GIBCA), Göteborg, Sweden
- Photo-Poetics: An Anthology, Deutsche Bank Kunsthalle, Berlin, Germany; traveled to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY
- A Room of One's Own, YAncey Richardson, New York, NY
- An Exhibition to Benefit Dancing Foxes Press, Bridget Donahue Gallery, New York, NY
An Unfixed Image: The Photographic Across Media, The College of New Jersey, Ewing Township, NJ
- Picture Thing, Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery, Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT
- Speaking of People, Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY
- Power Structures, P!, New York, NY
2014
- ICA Collection: In Context, Institute of Contemporary Art/Bston, Boston, MA
- The Material Image, Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York, NY
- Material Histories, Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY
- On Artworks, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
- A Public Fiction, In the Room: Leslie Hewitt, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles CA
2013
- Palimpsest, Carol Jazzar Contemporary Art, Miami, FL
- Under Another Name, Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY
- Untitled (Structures), Leslie Hewitt in collaboration with Bradford Young, Lofoten International Art Festival, Svolvær and Kabelvåg in the Lofoten archipelago,Norway
- Test Pattern, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY
- Body Language, Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY - Homebodies, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL
- 19 New Acquisitions, Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY
- Herbert Matter, Leslie Hewitt, Louis-Emile Durandelle, Louise Lawler,
Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York, NY
2012
- La Bibliothéque Comme Mémoire, Galerie Gabrielle Maubrie, Paris, France
- Terrain Shift, Works from the Miller Meigs Collection, Lumber Room, Portland, OR
- Blues for Smoke, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA; traveled to the Wexner Center for the Arts, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH
2011
- The Anxiety of Photography, Aspen Art Museum, Aspen, CO; traveled to The Jones Center at The Contemporary Austin, Austin, Texas
- Human Nature: Contemporary Art from the Collection, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA
2010
- Maisterra Valbuena Galería, Madrid, Spain
- Lush Life – Wolf Tickets, Salon 94 Freemans, New York, NY
- At Home-Not At Home: The Martin and Rebecca Eisenberg Collection, Hessel Museum of Art at Bard College CCS, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY
- Mutiny Seemed a Probability, Fondazione Giuliani per l’arte contemporanea, Rome, Italy
- After 1968: Contemporary Artists and the Civil Rights Legacy, Bronx Museum of the Arts, New York, NY
- The Front Room, Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, St. Louis, MO
2009
- 30 Seconds Off an Inch, Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY
- New Photography 2009, Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY
- The Garden of Forking Paths, Maisterra Valbuena Galería, Madrid, Spain
- Cumanana, Saltworks Gallery, Atlanta, GA
- Photodimensional, Museum of Contemporary Photography, Columbia College Chicago, Chicago, IL
- The House Was Quiet and the World Was Calm, Tina Kim Gallery, New York, NY
2008
- Untitled (Vicarious): Photographing the Constructed Object, Gagosian Gallery, New York, NY
- The Fullness of Time, Arndt & Partner, Zurich, Switzerland
- New Intuitions, Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY
- After 1968: Contemporary Artists and the Civil Rights Legacy, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA
- 2008 Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY
2007
- Alabama, Office Baroque Gallery, Antwerpen, Belgium
2006
- Civil Restitutions, Thomas Dane Gallery, London, UK
- Study Hall: The Carbonist School, Eyedrum Art/Musical, Atlanta, GA
- Double Exposure, Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, CT
2005
- Being There, Cuchifritos Gallery / Project Space, New York, NY
- Happenstance, Harris Lieberman Gallery, New York, NY
- Gimme Shelter, Saltworks Gallery, Atlanta, GA
- Talk to the Land, Andrew Kreps Gallery, New York, NY
- Frequency, Studio Museum in Harlem, Harlem, New York
- Make it Now, Sculpture Center, Long Island City, NY
public collections
American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York, NY
Art Gallery of Ontario, Ontario, Canada
Banco Espirito Santo, Lisbon, Portugal
Bowdoin College Museum of Art
, Brunswick, ME
Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, NY
Des Moines Art Center, Des Moines, IA
Fogg Art Musuem at Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
Fondazione Giuliani, Rome, Italy
The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY
The Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery, Saratoga Springs, NY
Harn Museum of Art, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL
Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, MA
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA
The Menil Collection, Houston, TX
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Saint Louis, MO
Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee, WI
Moody Center for the Arts, Rice University, Houston, TX
Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL
Museum of Contemporary Photography at Columbia College Chicago, Chicago, IL
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX
Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY
Perez Art Museum, Miami, FL
Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY
Studio Museum in Harlem, Harlem, NY
Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN
Williams College Musuem of Art, Williamstown, MA
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY
Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT
awards
2022
- Anyonymous Was A Woman Award
2020
- Guggenheim Fellow, Fine Arts
2015
- Teiger Mentor Arts, Cornell University
2014
- Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award
- USA Francie Bishop Good and David Horvitz Fellow
2010
- Joyce Alexander Wein Artist Prize
2009
- Foundation for Contemporary Art’s Grant
- Urban Visionaries: Emerging Talent, The Cooper Union, New York, NY
2008
- Art Matters Grant
- The Helene Rubinstein Foundation Fellowship Award
2007
- The Helene Rubinstein Foundation Fellowship Award
- The Rema Hort Mann Foundation Prize, New York, NY
- The Eliza Prize, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Houston, TX
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