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BY ABEL DELGADO

When you're in front of a Ma colm Liepke painting, it s a most

impossible to not have an emotional response, lntensiry ll

features a woman riveting you to the spot r,vith her stare, whrle

her hands are posed in front of her almost defensively, ls she

inviting viewers in or warding ihem off? Alone Together shows

a woman embraclng a man who's staring off into space,

distracted-or maybe alienated-from her. ls it mornentary

dlstraction or a sign he's lost interest in her? ln Seduction in

Blues and Greens, a couple lies in bed, The man is asleep, the

woman isn't. Her expression is pensive but it's not clear what

:ff,,,-9!"tio n' oil on can-vas, 70 x 32

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she's th nking-maybe she has tired of him and is focus ng her

seduct ve gaze on sorneone we can't see in the pa nt ng.

This focus on ernot onal content is clearly reminiscent of the

works of masters I ke Degas and Veazquez, among others, Not

a surprise-these legends were Liepke's "teachers." His formal

training at the Ad College of Design in Pasadena, California only

lasted a year and a half. The school's emphasis on conceptual

ad didn't work for the young adist, who moved to New York

in the iate 1970s after dropping out, While working as a

commercial adrst to support himself, Liepke studied the masters

of f guratrve parnt ng in museums a l aroLrnd the city. " He earned

compositiorr from Degas, depict on of ernot on from Toulouse-

Lautrec. flatness of magery from Japanese rvoodblock printers

and flesh tones from Veldzqaez, notes Steven Diamant of

Arcadia F ne Afts rn New York City, wh ch represents Liepke.

By the 1980s, Liepke's commerctal work had made it onto

the covers of magazines like Time, Newsweek, Forbes and

Sporls lllustrated, He turned to fine art full-time in 19BO and

h s work rmmediately resonated with buyers: his first one-man

exhibition completely sold out. Srnce then, Liepke has continued

to be sriccessir both crt ca ly and commercially.

The acpea of h s oantings stafts with his immense skil .

readiy ev deni rn hls ush brushwork, compelling composition

and vivid pa etie, Yet sk I alone, as Diamant observes. "is empty

and unsat sfyng. The power rn Lepke's paintngs comes

frorr the v,ray he uses this skil to "depict the entire spectrum

of human emotion," explains Diamant. The ultrmate effect ls a

feellng that each canvas is a glrmpse into the hidden emotional

lives of the sublects, a meaningful moment that Liepke captures

as if he were a rovrng photojournallst lnstead of a painter.