James Lebron; Art handler (great)
Hyfler/Rosner
James Lebron, a Wizard at Moving of Art, Dies at 76
By MARGALIT FOX NY Times
James Lebron, a master art handler and installer who
shepherded some of the most significant paintings of the
late 20th century along the tortuous path from artist's
studio to gallery wall, died on March 16 in West Islip, N.Y.
He was 76 and lived in North Babylon, N.Y.
The cause was respiratory failure, said his nephew Steve
Lebron.
Though Mr. Lebron was sometimes called a picture framer, the
phrase cannot begin to describe what he actually did.
Working quietly in Woodside, Queens, he was for decades a
sought-after, if unheralded, support behind some of the
masters of contemporary art, notably the Color Field
painters of the postwar years.
As New York magazine reported in 1990, "Among the emergency
numbers posted near the phone in Helen Frankenthaler's
studio are FIRE, POLICE and JIM LEBRON."
Mr. Lebron's other clients included Frank Stella, Morris
Louis and Jules Olitski; the Metropolitan Museum of Art; and
prominent collectors like S. I. Newhouse.
Equal parts engineer, expediter and conjurer, Mr. Lebron was
renowned for his ability to pass very large paintings
through very small spaces, developing techniques that
allowed huge canvases to be rolled or even folded. He was
also a skilled diplomat, reassuring a generation of artists
and collectors that he could safely usher masterworks out of
low studio doors, into narrow elevators, up stairs, through
windows, onto airplanes and, ultimately, onto the walls of
galleries, museums and private homes.
"He was the bridge between making art and having the world
see it," Ms. Frankenthaler said in an interview this week.
Painters choose their art handlers with more care than the
average person takes in choosing a brain surgeon. The
journey from studio to gallery is fraught with peril, and
this was especially true for the abstract paintings of the
late 1950's and after. In those years canvases grew to
staggering dimensions, sometimes 20 feet long and 10 feet
high. Mounted on wooden stretchers, they were too tall to
fit through most doorways. Unstretched, they were too
fragile to roll up. How, then, to get them out of the
studio?
For the Color Field painters, who often applied washes of
paint directly to unprimed canvas, there was an additional
risk.
"The paint is often very thin, which means that the canvas -
and for the most part we're talking about cotton duck
canvas - is very responsive to changes in temperature and
humidity," Diane Upright, a Manhattan art dealer, explained
in an interview. "In the summer months, when it's humid, the
canvases are taut and beautiful. In the winter months, when
the heat goes on and the humidity drops, the canvas can
become slack."
To compensate, paintings are traditionally mounted on
stretchers, wooden bars that can be expanded to tighten the
canvas. In the past, most stretchers were adjusted with a
wooden key at the back of the frame. But moving a painting
could loosen the key, causing the canvas to buckle.
In the 1950's, at the request of a conservator at the Museum
of Modern Art, Mr. Lebron developed an improved stretcher.
The Lebron Stretcher incorporated Tite-Joint fasteners, used
by cabinetmakers to create perfectly flush joints of great
strength. For large canvases, Mr. Lebron built huge,
segmented stretchers that allowed paintings to be folded.
James Joseph Lebron was born in Manhattan on Sept. 14, 1928,
to parents who had come from Puerto Rico and the Dominican
Republic. He studied engineering for two years at the City
College of New York and later went to work in the crating
department of Seven Santini Brothers, a moving and storage
company that handled artwork. There, he developed his
stretcher system, building the stretchers at night in the
basement of his Bronx apartment house before establishing
his own business, Lebron Brothers, in Queens.
Mr. Lebron is survived by his wife, the former Helen Colon;
a sister, Myrna Cardello of North Babylon; three brothers:
Rudy and Tito, both of the Bronx, and Hector, of Boca Raton,
Fla.; and many nieces and nephews.
In interviews this week, many artists recalled Mr. Lebron's
complete unflappability as he maneuvered canvases
approaching the size of a city bus.
"We'd lay out the problem and he'd say, 'It shall be done,'
" Mr. Olitski said. "He could handle things, but very
calmly. And I would appear calm, but my heart would be in my
mouth."