TRENTON, NJ.- Artist As Curator and Mel Leipzig: Selected Works by Trenton-based painter Mel Leipzig, are now on display at the New Jersey State Museum through September 6, 2009.

In Artist As Curator, Mr. Leipzig took on the role of curator to organize an exhibition drawn from the State Museum 's renowned collection of American art. In this exhibition, the viewer can see what has influenced the artist's own output. Mr. Leipzig chose to limit his selections to representational works created in the 20th century and included are works by Georgia O'Keeffe, Horace Pippin, Neil Welliver, Edward Hopper, Ben Shahn, Marsden Hartley, Larry Rivers, and Fairfield Porter, among others. A professor of visual arts at Mercer County Community College , Mr. Leipzig is a nationally respected artist, having studied at The Cooper Union, Yale University and Pratt Institute.

Visitors may watch the artist at work while he creates a new painting on the Museum's campus. Mr. Leipzig will be painting en plein air (in the open air) continuing through the end of May. He will be on - site, weather permitting, on Wednesdays and Saturdays from noon to 4 pm.

Elected to membership in the prestigious National Academy, other awards include a Fulbright Traveling Fellowship, the Louis Comfort Tiffany Award, and one of the last individual artists grants from the National Endowment For the Arts. Mr. Leipzig's work is also included in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Yale Art Gallery, New Haven, CT; Cooper-Hewitt Museum, New York; the White House, Washington, DC; the Montclair Art Museum, Montclair, NJ; and the New Jersey State Museum; among others.