Art, Design & Fashion
Landmark
Leslie Lumeh
Opened Monrovia's first art gallery, and founded its art school
Landmark is level 2 of 4 in the Liberia Hall of Fame: a first that opened a door, or the pre-eminent figure of their generation in this country. See how the levels work.
Why they are here
Exiled by the war, he came home and opened the first gallery Monrovia had ever had, then built a school that teaches Liberian children to draw for nothing.
Leslie Lumeh is a self-taught Liberian painter whom CNN has called Liberia's most celebrated artist.
His work moved over thirty years from watercolours of the civil war to contemporary painting about African life more broadly. Exiled during the war, he returned to Liberia in 2005, opened the Art of the Heart gallery in Monrovia in 2008 — the first of its kind in the capital — and in 2010 founded the Liberian Visual Arts Academy, which gives free art teaching to Liberian young people. He has exhibited in Côte d'Ivoire, Gabon, South Africa, the United States and at the Lumières d'Afriques exhibition in Paris.
His work moved over thirty years from watercolours of the civil war to contemporary painting about African life more broadly. Exiled during the war, he returned to Liberia in 2005, opened the Art of the Heart gallery in Monrovia in 2008 — the first of its kind in the capital — and in 2010 founded the Liberian Visual Arts Academy, which gives free art teaching to Liberian young people. He has exhibited in Côte d'Ivoire, Gabon, South Africa, the United States and at the Lumières d'Afriques exhibition in Paris.
- CNN — Leslie Lumeh: painting from the heart
- Accountability Lab — Leslie Lumeh and the fight for Liberia's cultural heritage
- Artsy — Leslie Lumeh
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