Leah Poller

Biography

Leah Poller was born in Pennsylvania. She received classical training in sculpture at the prestigious Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux-Arts, in Paris, France. Partaking in a rich, multi-cultural environment, Poller interacted with foremost members of the international arts communities of France, Spain, Italy, and Latin America during her 20 years in Paris. Returning to the United States in 1992, Poller opened her studio and gallery, The Art Alliance, in a consummate Soho loft. There she specialized in introducing "New to America" mid and late-career artists (Jacques Soisson, Ipousteguy, Ugo Attardi, Bernardo Torrens, Mario Murua, etc.). Her Salon evenings were the rage, presented in the grand tradition of the European Salon, while "Frame it, Its Yours" and "Yin-yang - A social/cultural Laboratory" were precursors to current trends in-gallery activities. Poller has curated more than 140 exhibitions worldwide. Simultaneously, she began the series of “Beds” which has been exhibited in galleries and institutions in Europe, Mexico, China, and throughout the United States in over 40 individual and group exhibitions.

In 2003, she was named Director of “Intercambios de Arte y Cultural Internacionale”, a not-for-profit furthering cultural exchanges between the Americas and spearheading the restoration of a major twentieth-century mural, recently revealed by Poller to be the work of Philip Guston.

In 2009 Poller moved to Harlem where she continues to work on “Bed” and its social media component "Bed Unmade” (www.bedunmade.com), a collection of unmade bed photos from around the world.

From her classical training as a portraitist, Poller has executed major portrait commissions in which the thoughts of the subject are transformed from internal to external, appearing as “headdresses” on her subjects in her portrait series “Warrior Women” and “Eyes of the Soul.

In 2010 Poller began an extensive collaboration with the largest bronze casting foundry in the world located in China. Subsequently, she has received major recognition and multiple exhibitions in galleries, art fairs, and institutions in Shanghai, Beijing, and Hong Kong. Poller was selected as the ONLY foreigner, the only American to exhibit at the Beijing Biennale of Female Sculptors.

She has been featured on CNN, Fox Television, and in numerous art publications.  She has lectured extensively and held workshops on creativity.

Poller has been Guest Editor for New Observations, a literary/art journal that began in the 1980s.

in its 95th year. She has been Chair Person for PR/Marketing and in 2025 was named to the Advisory Committee. She is a member of the Sculptor Guild, Silvermine Artists Guild, New York Artists Circle,  and New York Artists Equity.

In 2024-2025, the prestigious GIO Art Institution of Beijing honored Poller with an extensive retrospective, "The Alchemy of Matter", featuring over 45 bronze sculptures and 50 "Zoomer" sculptures made during Covid.

In 2026  the Toqine Museum of Nanchang, China will be inaugurated with a permanent exhibition in its maun gakkery f 50 of Poller's bronze scukptures on the theme of the "BED". 

Poller travels extensively,  with Harlem,New York and Lecce, Italy,  as her home base and Nanching, China for her casting/foundry activities.

Artist statement

Following an accident in my studio, I was relegated to bed – and thus began an incredible study of our relationship with the bed in all its visual, literary, and narrative forms. More than a third of our life is spent in bed, yet rarely has it been examined through a multi-faceted work of art. Exploring this in 3 dimensions has given full scope to my sense of humor, pathos, whimsy, sarcasm, tragedy, and passion. It has been an ambitious undertaking to create The 101 BED COLLECTION of interrelated sculptures related to words with “bed” in them. Meeting the challenge has been mind-expanding and multi-sensorial in every sense.

I have invited my audience into a very special theater of personal experience by creating the UNMADE BED PROJECT, a collection of personal images of UNMADE BEDS from around the world (www.unmadebedproject.com), and in 2011, I began to collect audio contributions about dreams.

My work in portraiture follows my own search for a higher state of consciousness. What if I could capture the consciousness of my subject by entering the mind through its only portal beyond the cranium: the eyes? Our physical form is an external manifestation of our thoughts, one of which is supreme – how we see ourselves. If I could see my subject as my subject sees herself/himself, in her/ his secret thoughts, most intimate thoughts, what would be seen? As my subject poses, a conversation begins not unlike the one that would occur between a patient and her/his analyst. The revelations, the “nakedness”, then become symbolized through forms and objects, through stances and poses, until the portrait makes a statement that is not simply representational. The sur-realization is in fact, the reality of a complex being, revealed beyond the classic portrait,

What better place to start than with myself as the subject?