Jewish Museum Art Basel Show, Mira Lehr: A Walk in the Garden

Mira Lehr’s Art Basel show in the Jewish museum of Florida-FIU, Mira Lehr: A Walk in the Garden, is a thematic bridge to Miami Beach’s past, and Lehr’s herself, growing up in this town. No wonder, reviewing this year’s Miami Basel, ArtNet included it as among “the best art on view beyond the fairs.” Art Basel yearly selects her to be one of the artists for their official studio visits. This year, she will be represented in Art Miami, INK Fair and the Rosenbaum Pop Up Gallery in the Design District.

In fact, Miami Herald’s art critic Helen Kohen credited 85-year-old Lehr as the precursor to Basel, thanks to her efforts in the 70s to bring the New York art world to Miami.

As to her inspiration for the site specific show in what was once the only synagogue in town, Lehr need only remember as a child, the signs that read “No Jews, No Dogs” on her walk to school. In those days, the 5th Street synagogue was the demarcation line of Miami Beach’s unofficial ghetto. Lehr’s family were one of the few Jews living beyond that line and she has never stopped thinking about the sting of antisemitism and, in fact, the wounds of World War II. “When I was a little girl I saw pictures in Life Magazine of Jews standing by a ditch and being shot,” she said. “I’ll never forget that trauma. It left a terrible scar. Antisemitism is not politically correct any more. But there are pockets all over and I’m afraid of today’s rising tide. Still, I’m hoping man will evolve to not think that way.” Lehr was invited to create this site specific show on the heels of her one woman show in Museum of Contemporary Art in North Miami which transformed MOCA’s 23,000 square feet into her artistic vision: sinewy ropes evoking indigenous Mangroves, paintings evoking the flora and inhabitants of the surrounding seas. Her jelly fish and other natural imagery and ecological concerns have inadvertently put her smack in the middle of the emerging eco feminist movement. With the Jewish Museum show, Lehr invites us into a different natural habitant. “It’s a holy garden that takes people out of the actual world and into a spiritual plane,” she says, “including an aerial garden of luminous reflecting hanging sculptures that reference the stain glass windows.” It also references a line of art as jewelry she is creating. One panel depicts the seven types of plants found in the Bible. Lehr has been an active player in transforming Miami into an art savvy town, since she returned from Vassar, married to a cardiologist. In the 60s in New York, she had been there/done that: working with Robert Motherwell, James Brooks, Ludwig Sander and getting to know Helen Frankenthaller, Joan Mitchell and Lee Krasner. Later, Buckminster Fuller selected her to participate in his World Game Scenario Project at the New York Studio School. Back in Miami, she yearned for that stimuli. So, into the midst of Miami’s homogenous, social, vacation world, Lehr brought together a coterie of women artists, and founded the first women’s coop gallery, The Continuum. They studied with Hans Hofmann’s star pupil, brought down such New York luminaries as John Chamberlain and gallery owner Betty Parsons, and showcased other local artists as well. Slowly, Miami became a place for serious art Lehr may be a bridge to the Old Miami Beach, but, she is living very much in the present. She’s doing the best work of her life, gaining traction with collectors, recognized as a great Doyenne of Miami’s art world, and working feverishly to create her next shows. In January there are one woman exhibitions in The Mennello Museum of American Art in Orlando, an environmental sculpture and painting installation taking over its public spaces, called “High Water Mark,” and another in Miami Beach’s waterfront JCC. She’s featured in Miami and Luxe Magazine, Artnet, among a slew of recent press. Serious collectors are reaching out to invest in her large works. And she’s been asked to help with the Save the Sea Horses habitat campaign. During Basel, she is one of a handful of local artists to invite collectors into her Pine Tree Drive home, where bedrooms that once housed children, now house art, and living areas that once entertained other young couples now serve her paintings, collages, sculptures, and jewelry.

“ This lifelong pursuit of 'searching for the real’ in art has brought me great joy,” Lehr says. "I have now evolved to a special place in my work where the essence has become more visible and an inner light shines through."