Michael Leibovici uses a wide range of media, including watercolor, oil on canvas, and pastel crayon on paper, to create enchanting vignettes of imaginary spaces from a bucolic world gone by. Leibovici cites the landscape and atmosphere of Italy as inspiration, where he has continued to revisit since 1978. These serene images of everyday scenes are bathed in warm and earthy color palette and imbued with an air of poetic mystery: a stray dog wandering alone on a cobblestone sidewalk, a couple sitting on the edge of a fountain by the sea, a woman roller skating across a vacant courtyard, a man riding a bicycle across a grassy field, people in a piazza. The downy and simplified figures in his compositions are rendered in soft shapes and colors, and appear to engage in muted conversations. A game of looking is often at play in Leibovici's images: one individual is often observing another, whose gaze is directed elsewhere toward another. Through a nuanced use of light and shadow, Leibovici infuses his paintings and drawings with an enigmatic mood, conjuring gentle, dream-like visions.

Leibovici was born in Bucharest, Romania, in 1926, and settled in Paris in 1970 where he continues to live and work. His work has been the subject of solo exhibitions organized by the Galeri Libre, Montreal; Galerie Visconti, Paris; Galerie Francis Barlier, Paris; Galerie Zveiger, Lugano; Galerie de Greef, Venice; among others. Leibovici has also participated in grouop exhibitions held at Galerie Solange Paul-Cavallier, Paris; Galerie Am Tunnel, Luxembourg; Salon de Mai, Paris; Centre Régional d'Art Contemporain, Grenoble; Galerie Irus et Vincent Hansma, Paris; and many others. His work is represented in the collection of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France. Michael Leibovici passed away in 2015.

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