Mark Schlesinger American, b. 1949

Mark Schlesinger is a painter whose work concentrates on an exploration of color and the visual tactility of material. Focusing on lines, planes, shapes, colors, Schlesinger is enthralled with the formal elements of painting.

Michael Schreyach, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Art and Art History at Trinity University and author of Pollock’s Modernism, states “Schlesinger’s imagery is motivated on some fundamental level by his sense of the possibilities of representing, through abstract pictorial form, the body’s infinitely variable modes of touching, feeling, and being. Plainly, this cannot be a matter of literal reference or narrative.”

Schlesinger earned a Bachelor of Arts from Harpur College, State University of New York at Binghamton in 1971, and participated in the Whitney Museum of American Art Independent Study Program in New York City in 1972.  He was also a studio assistant to Lee Krasner for almost three years.

Originally from New York, he now lives and works in San Antonio, Texas. He has exhibited his work at Acquavella, Leo Castelli,  Mary Boone, and Andre Emmerich Galleries, and his works have been featured and reviewed by The New York Times, Artforum, and Art in America. His works are in international and national collections, including European Fine Art Foundation, Geneva, Switzerland; Houston Museum of Fine Art, Houston, Texas; Israel Museum of Art, Jerusalem; Kameyama Museum, Tokyo, Japan; The McNay Museum, San Antonio, Texas; The New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York; and San Antonio Museum of Art, San Antonio, Texas.