Melvin Leiserowitz

1925 - 2015

Melvin Leiserowitz

East Lansing, MI



Melvin G. Leiserowitz, of East Lansing, Michigan, passed away peacefully at home on February 5, 2015.

Mel, son of immigrant parents from Lithuania and Poland, was born in Des Moines, Iowa, February 13, 1925. It was the beginning of a long life of searching, first for an American identity, later for education and a professional identity; a search that took many forms and directions. His first role after adolescence was as an American soldier fighting in Belgium, France and Czechoslovakia in World War II. En route for the invasion of Japan, he was on a troop ship when the atom bomb was dropped.

After the war and taking brief part in the occupation of Japan, he re-entered college as an architecture student. Due to a problem with vision, he abandoned architecture for a degree in journalism. Living in Des Moines, he married Marilyn Bailin and parented two sons, Gary and Bruce. For a time he worked in his father's business, H.B. Leiserowitz Co. Soon he formed a company of his own importing goods from Japan in its early attempts at economic recovery. This connection led to his appointment as an ambassador from Des Moines to its sister-city, Kofu, Japan.

Advised by a friend that he was too focused on work and needed a hobby, he began art classes at the Des Moines Art Center and was soon captivated by making sculpture. At age 38, leaving his life in Des Moines, he embarked in pursuit of a Master of Arts degree at the University of Iowa. The oldest student to have ever been accepted into the program, he completed it in two years. He persuaded fellow sculpture student, Nancy Myers, to credential herself with the Master of Fine Arts degree and attain a position teaching sculpture at Connecticut College in New London, Connecticut.

Mel came to Michigan State University in 1964 and Nancy joined him in 1965 to begin a marriage that lasted fifty years. Their son Anthony and daughter Andrea were born there and were brought up on a farm near Mason.

In the course of a teaching career that lasted until 1991, Mel influenced a generation of sculpture students. At the same time he produced a body of work that ranged in scale from very large (Orpheus at the Wharton Center for the Performing Arts) to small relief panels of a few inches, and in media from steel, Cor-Ten and stainless steel, to clay, plaster and concrete. His extensive exhibition record of one-man and group shows included the O.K. Harris Gallery in NYC and several shows at the Hankins Gallery in East Lansing. Large commissioned works can be seen at the Civic Center, Southfield, MI, Oakland University/Meadowbrook, Molly Grove Chapel, First Presbyterian Church, Lansing, MI, Beth el Synagogue, Ann Arbor, MI, and the Horticulture Gardens and Kresge Art Building, MSU. An avid experimenter, his last works (made in his 89th year) are made of brightly-colored plastic tubes in mimicry and extension of the oxygen tubing on which his life depended.

He is survived by his wife Nancy, children Gary, Bruce, Anthony and Andrea, grandchildren Erica, Toby, Alexander and Sofia, brothers Alfred and Robert Leiserowitz and a sister, Marie Leviton. A public celebration of his life will be held at a future date. Donations in his name may be made to Hospice of Lansing, 4052 Legacy Parkway, Lansing, MI, 48911.