Biography - Tim Lefens

Tim Lefens CV/Bio

Tim Lefens: Born 1953 in Detroit, Michigan. Currently lives in Belle Mead just north of Princeton, NJ.

Age 15 meets and is befriended by artist Roy Lichtenstein. Spent part of each summer at Roy’s place in South Hampton, sitting in on studio reviews with Leo Castelli.
Recommendation to art school written by Roy Lichtenstein.
After VCU BFA, grad work was done at Rutgers Mason Gross School of the Arts.

Post schooling, had numerous solo shows in Princeton, NJ area, including a show with Princeton Fine Art director, Gary Snyder and a two person show with Walter Darby Bannard at the Ellarslie Museum.
Regular one on one painting critiques with Clement Greenberg. Greenberg wrote on behalf of Lefens to help him win the Pollock-Krasner Award for painting.
Shows at Brooke Alexander Gallery, benefit exhibit for the Wooster Group, art show included Jeff Koons and Annie Leibowitz as well.
Diagnosed with Retinitis Pigmentosa, was told he only had two more years of useful vision left.
Solo show at the Farah Damji Gallery in Chelsea.
Lefens exhibited large scale paintings in Jersey City and Hoboken.
After blindness, Lefens continued to paint.

Invents laser guided painting system and receives The Arts and Healing Network Award.
Invented the A.R.T. Flying Eye photography system. A.R.T. received Robert Rauschenburg Foundation Award.
Invented LASSY [Light Actuated Synthesizer] and received Robert Wood Johnson Community Health Leadership and President’s Awards.
Invents the A.R.T. C3D machine for sculpture

Invited to give talk/slide show for students who turn out to be facing the most extreme physical challenges. It was a life-changing experience being with the young people and redirected Lefens life. He then formed a studio painting program at the Matheny school and hospital that became the nonprofit known as “A.R.T.” (Artistic Realization Technologies)
Lefens has been the Founder and Executive Director of A.R.T. for the last 26 years.
Lefens received the Robert Wood Johnson Community Health Leadership and President’s Award.
Received the Arts and Healing Network Award.
A.R.T. was the recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts Excellence in Arts Programing award.
A.R.T.’s board has included actor Willem Dafoe, rocker Neil Young, Pulitzer Prize winning author John McPhee, Scarlet Snow Johnson, and David Lichtenstein.
A.R.T. created studio programs in fourteen states. Support for national campaign from the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation and Bruce Calvert of the Calvert Fund.
Lefens invented the A.R.T. Dolphin, sonar guided walking stick for the blind.
A.R.T. artists were given studio program space on Princeton University campus with the Dept. of Art, and two different exhibitions at the Princeton University Art Museum.
Invents A.R.T. Floating T-square.
A.R.T. artists have shown at MOCA, Princeton University Art Museum and Sotheby’s.

Lefens wrote Flying Colors. Published by Beacon Press, was named by Reader’s Digest: Today’s Best Nonfiction Flying Colors translated into Chinese, published in China and is part of numerous university curricula.
Lefens was included in the book ‘Me to We,’ fellow authors include Oprah Winfrey, Jane Goodall, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Richard Gere, written by authors Craig & Marc Kielburger.
Lefens featured in People magazine, the New York Times, CNN, PBS, CBS Evening News Eye on America, Senator Bill Bradly’s American Voices Radio Show.

Gave distinguished artist lecture at SUNY.
After blindness Lefens continued to paint.
Lefens gave a TED Talk.
Lefens invited to address Enshallah Center Conference Doha Qatar, co-hosts Emirs wife to give the title, as well as the wife of Tony Blair, i.e. former PM of Britain.

CBS Evening News covered A.R.T as well as Lefens in a segment https://youtu.be/kBM3VdWmHXY

Documentary filmmaker, Lise Zumwalt, of Witness Doc Films is attracting funding for a film on Lefens and A.R.T., working title: The Power of Paint.