Hollis Taggart Galleries celebrates the publication and exhibition of graphite drawings for Toad to a Nightingale, Thursday, February 28th. Brothers Brad and Mark Leithauser have united their artistic talents again in this delightfully clever book of light verse published by David R. Godine, Publisher, Inc. of Boston. Brad’s witty written lines accompany Mark’s ingeniously executed lines. Approximately thirty drawings and a selection of oil paintings will be on view through March 15.
Born in Detroit in the 1950s Brad and Mark Leithauser share the same exquisite family wit, one born in precise observation matched with intellectual playfulness. Godine describes this latest work, “With the lightness and lyricism of Mozart and the fantasy and invention of Dali, these verses and their figurations prove that sibling collaborations can certainly provide rich rewards, especially for the reader.”
Brad Leithasuser graduated from Harvard College and Harvard Law School. The author of twelve previous novels, including four volumes of poetry, and a book of essays, he has received numerous awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, an Ingram Merrill grant, and a MacArthur Fellowship. He also served as the theater critic for Time magazine. He currently resides in Amherst, Massachusetts where he is an Emily Dickenson Senior Lecturer in the Humanities at Mount Holyoke College.
Mark Leithauser received a bachelor's degree in the classics and two master's degrees in fine arts from Wayne State University in Detroit, where he instructed studio art. He has exhibited at Hollis Taggart Galleries in Washington, D.C. and New York, Coe Kerr Gallery in New York, the Brooklyn Museum, the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the National Museum of American Art, and the Library of Congress, among others. Hollis Taggart Galleries began representing Mark in 1993. Mark has received much acclaim and acknowledgement during his career at the National Gallery of Art, where he is currently a Senior Curator and Chief of Design.