Iria Leino, Snowy Pink, 1970, acrylic on canvas, 74 x 60 inches

Frieze Masters
Featuring work by Iria Leino
Booth S25
October 15 – 19, 2025
VIP Preview: October 15, 11am–7pm

Public Hours​​
October 16, 1–7pm
October 17–18, 11am–7pm
October 19, 11am–6pm

Gloucester Green, Regent's Park
London NW1 4HA, UK

For Frieze Masters, Harper’s is pleased to present an exhibition of newly discovered works from the Estate of Iria Leino, spotlighting her overlooked contributions to the canon of second wave Abstract Expressionism. Starting in the 1960s, Leino was among a group of artists pushing the boundaries of lyrical abstraction and color field painting without recognition. Rarely exhibiting and known by only a few of her New York contemporaries, Leino devoted herself to the pursuit of transcendence, expressing mystical views of reality, employing an innovative vocabulary of abstraction, and experimenting with color through different thematic series. Only upon her passing in 2022 was her full body of work first revealed in her SoHo loft, a virtual time capsule preserving her life in art.

The exhibition will feature a curated selection of paintings from two series: Buddhist Rain and Colorfield. Leino developed both bodies of work in tandem from the late 1960s to the mid-1970s, after fully transitioning to acrylic paint as her primary medium. Using aerosol, staining, and pouring techniques without a brush—at times adding pastel and oil stick through freehand drawing—she favored evoking the immediacy of color on raw canvas. Alongside peers like Helen Frankenthaler, Morris Louis, Kenneth Noland, Jules Olitski, and her former teacher, Larry Poons, Leino helped pioneer the use of water-based pigments and their formal possibilities.
 

For sales inquiries, please contact sales@harpersgallery.com

For press inquiries, please contact info@harpersgallery.com

Website
Instagram