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Gwyneth Leech Art

@gwynethleech

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🔹 Painting the changing city
🔸New York cityscapes and buildings under construction.
🔹DM for purchase and commissions
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Gone to a new home! This is one of several small paintings I have done of a rainy Blue Hour on West 44th Street in Manhattan. Pleased to see a young couple acquire it to mark their upcoming wedding. Thank you Robin Nagle, fellow @germantownfriends School alumna, for bringing your family to my studio today! taken in Hell's Kitchen NYC by @gwynethleech

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2 months ago

Combining some favorite things: watching my community garden bloom, following some building restoration and painting outdoors! This is a good day! 💚❤️🌹🌸🌺🏗️

#springinnyc
#clintoncommunitygarden taken in Clinton Community Garden by @gwynethleech

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3 months ago

Thank you @artmobia for this essay!
“The island of Manhattan has never lacked for artists to tell her tale in unique fashion. From William Burgis’ panoramic view in 1717 and Andy Warhol’s still-life Empire film in 1965, to 21st century topographic artist Joe Mackin’s citywide model 21-years in the making; through its artists New York City will always remain new. Then there is Gwyneth Leech, the artist first known for creating her stylized images across countless used coffee cups. Along with her daily detailing the city’s constant re-construction and construction starting with the immediate world around her – a new 42-floor building outside her painting studio window on West 39th Street – her raison d’etre has become that of a documentarian. With paint rather than film, Leech shows off how New York City builds its ribbons in the skyline with fresh developments along West 57th Street’s Billionaires’ Row, the Museum of Modern Art tower on 53rd Street, One Vanderbilt astride the Grand Central Terminal and the whole of Hudson Yards including its new arts center, The Shed.

So well known is Leech for her oil or acrylic on canvas documentation of NYC that a documentary short film on her work, The Monolith, has garnered its own acclaim and awards.

Though she has pointed out the inspiration of 20th century painters and etchers of Manhattan such as the hustling, bustled cityscapes of watercolorist John Marin, Precisionist Elsie Diggs and those under-construction Chrysler Building wood engravings by Howard Cook, there is a splotchy, yet highly precise sense of detailing and space to Leech’s New York City that is hers, and hers alone. From the glass and steel slopes of The Shed to the in-process rise of 53 W53 Street and MoMA Extension, complete with derricks and scaffolding, hers is a caustic, honest take on the city that never sleeps. With that, Gwyneth Leech is the Fran Lebovitz of the Downtown-scape painting world.”

270 Park Rising: View Along W 48th St, Early Morning
20x10”

The Shed in Construction
24x36”

270 Rising: View from Park Ave & 49th St, Aug Midday
30x24”

53W53 Street and MoMA Extension
15x30”

Rooftop View from 434 W 47th St, Looking S
18x24” taken in New York City by @gwynethleech

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4 months ago

Congratulations to the New Museum which reopens this weekend after a major expansion! Sharing three paintings I did of the construction process spanning two years, all acrylic on paper 16” x 20”. I was fascinated by the way the buildings step up in height one next to the other and by the bold diagonal of the new structure connecting the old and new. The construction site was especially striking at night. I’m looking forward to seeing the finished structures from the inside!

Kudos to all involved!

More information, from @mchlanglo793:

“The @newmuseum and its expansion is set to open to the public this Saturday March 21 at 11:00am at 231 Bowery. Designed by Rem Koolhaas and @shohei_shigematsu of @omanewyork along with Cooper Robertson & Partners, the 174-foot-tall annex stands directly south of the main building designed by SANAA (@sanaa_jimusho ), which was completed in 2007.

The 60,000-square-foot addition connects laterally to the original structure and will more than double the institution’s footprint to 115,277 square feet. The new building will contain three gallery floors, an 80-seat restaurant, a larger bookstore, and offices for staff, among other spaces.

Additional programming in the annex will include artist residency studios, an upper-level forum for education and public programs that will connect to the existing Sky Room, and a home for the museum’s new cultural incubator, @newinc . The new wing will feature an expanded lobby with three new elevators, with two dedicated to gallery access, and a public plaza that will host art installations, performances, and gatherings.

@sciame_construction served at the general contractor for the property, which is located at the intersection of Bowery and Prince Street.” taken in New Museum by @gwynethleech

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4 months ago

10 years ago (!!), in a white-out blizzard like today, I was in the studio doing this drawing of the building construction coming up right outside my 13th floor window. The new structure was now almost level with my window and I could watch the process in detail. That day, the workers were struggling to secure tarps and batten down materials in the storm. One of the workers turned and looked at me and we waved to each other across the gap between our buildings!

The series of drawings and paintings I did that year of the new tower as it rose to 40 floors set my art on a whole new trajectory. I’ll be sharing highlights from the journey in future posts to celebrate a decade of following construction projects across midtown Manhattan!

Building Construction in a Whiteout
India ink on paper
16” x 20”
2016 taken in Garment District, New York City by @gwynethleech

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5 months ago

Thank you, @ashcan_daily for featuring the artwork of my grandfather, Michael J. Gallagher (1898-1965)!

“Anthracite”, 1938, carborundum etching at @theamoncarter

It’s back to work today and another image celebrating work this morning.

Michael J. Gallagher, born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, to an Irish coal-mining family, defied expectations to pursue art after a tuberculosis diagnosis. Trained at the Philadelphia Museum and School of Industrial Art, where he met his wife, Katherine McCallum, he became a key figure in the WPA’s Federal Art Project. As technical director of the Philadelphia Fine Print Workshop, he co-developed (along with Dox Thrash) the carborundum printmaking technique, creating stark depictions of coal mining and urban life.

Gallagher’s artistic legacy continues through his family. His wife, Katherine, was an art student, and their daughter, Louise Leech, became a watercolorist. His granddaughter, Gwyneth Leech, a New York painter, captures Manhattan’s urban landscapes, echoing her grandfather’s place-based art.

#michaeljgallagher #carborundum #anthracitecoalmining taken in Amon Carter Museum of American Art by @gwynethleech

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6 months ago

Happy New Year from Hell’s Kitchen, NYC! The ball drops in that brightly lit corner of my painting of the rooftop view from our building on West 47th Street and every year we hear the roar of the crowd from Times Square!
Wishing everyone a great start to 2026!

Oil on wood panel, 12” x 12”. taken in Hell's Kitchen NYC by @gwynethleech

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7 months ago

Twas the night before Christmas…
The stockings were hung from the chimney with care….

Wait. We don’t have a chimney in our tenement apartment in NYC.
So, the kids want to know, how does Santa get in?
He uses the fire escape, obviously!!

Rooftop Geometry
Oil on wood panel, 12” x 22”

Merry Christmas to all!! taken in Hell's Kitchen NYC by @gwynethleech

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7 months ago

Greetings for the Winter Solstice, which falls this Sunday, December 21st at 10:03 am!

Sharing a twilight painting of the view from the roof of my tenement building in Hell’s Kitchen, to mark this shortest day of the year.

The weird rooftop structures continue to fascinate me; the bulkheads and skylights, chimneys and air-shaft parapets make an architectural landscape of their own against the surrounding towers of 57th Street and Times Square. New buildings are going up all the time, adding different perspectives each year. New York City just keeps evolving! taken in Hell's Kitchen NYC by @gwynethleech

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7 months ago

Come visit a very special old-school artist’s loft this Friday Nov. 14 | 6-8pm, for the opening reception of PEEL BACK, a pop-up exhibition by @ahafineart.
I am showing two paintings, each revealing layers of the city in the Times Square area.

Address: 116 Duane Street, 4th Floor, Manhattan, NYC
On View: Nov 14 - Dec 3, 2025
Gallery Hours: Weds & Sat: 10am-2pm

AHA Fine Art presents 🍌 Peel Back, a salon-style group exhibition set within one of the few remaining artist lofts in Lower Manhattan, once home to the late Vincent Arcilesi. The Duane Street loft, layered with art and rooted in raw, scaffolded ideas, bears the traces of time, revealing vestiges of history and remnants of what might otherwise be forgotten. The work speaks to both the quiet and resounding revelations, intimacies, humor, and stories that art continues to uncover, and to the ways these layers connect us through the personal “peels” 🍌 of each artist. taken in Duane Street TriBeCa by @gwynethleech

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8 months ago

Some more photos from my recent open studio at 315 West 39th Street in Manhattan. Weren’t able to come but still would like to visit? DM me and we’ll work out a date!

Many thanks to @ritakatarika for these photos!
She writes: “A few times a year, Manhattan artists open their studios — and it’s always such a treat.
This time, I finally got to visit the incredibly talented Gwyneth Leech 💛 @gwynethleech
We’ve followed each other for years, and meeting her in person was so special!
Her art truly touches me — the way she captures Manhattan’s energy, constant development and construction through acrylics is just magic. 🎨✨” taken in West 39th Street Studio by @gwynethleech

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9 months ago

Just one week ago, 270 Park Avenue, the new headquarters of @jpmorganchase had its grand opening in midtown Manhattan. It is a building I followed in drawings and paintings since it first rose above street level with the installation of fan columns in 2021. Here is a series of paintings in oils of the construction process spanning four years. The first three are 24” x 18”, the last one s 36” x 24”.

From @theb1m: New York has a new icon. After several years of construction, today marks the official opening of 270 Park Avenue, a $3BN skyscraper that will become the global headquarters of JP Morgan Chase. Designed @fosterandpartners, the supertall structure stands 423-metres above the streets of Manhattan’s Midtown East and can accomodate some 10,000 people.

Commenting on the opening, Lord Foster said: “This new all electric tower is hydro powered to minimize its carbon footprint. The unique cantilevered structure, clad in bronze, delivers two and a half times the amount of public space at the base, including a garden, than its predecessor. The unparalleled range of venues and leisure activities, coupled with tall spaces with generous natural light and high levels of fresh filtered air – twice that of building codes – combine to set new standards of wellbeing. It is the workplace of the future designed for today.”

#270parkavenue #270park taken in 270 Park Avenue by @gwynethleech

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9 months ago