Michael Lenson was born in Galich, Russia, in 1903. He came to America in 1911 and lived in New York City with his family. He had one sister and seven brothers, one of whom was the famous American humorist Sam Levenson.
Lenson studied at the National Academy of Design in New York while he worked as a mail handler and commercial artist. ln 1928,he won the coveted $10,000 Chaloner Foundation Prize, which paid for four years of study in Paris, London, the Netherlands and Spain.
While in Europe he studied at the Academie des Beaux Arts in Paris and at The University of London’s Slade School of Art and exhibited extensively.
Upon his return to America in l932, Lenson had several well-reviewed exhibitions at art galleries in New York, including the Bonestell and Caz-Delbo galleries. However the Great Depression soon struck, and Lenson found himself looking for work. In 1938, Lenson visited Halsey Street in Newark, where he joined the Federal Art Project, which
later became the Work Projects Administration (WPA). In the next year, he completed his first major mural commission in the state of New Jersey: An immense mural measuring 15’x75′ for the cafeteria of the Verona Sanatorium (since destroyed). Following the completion of that mural, Lenson was asked to supervise the installation of all federally funded murals in New Jersey. He did so, and also painted more murals, including an eight-panel “History of Newark” (still extant in the City Council Chambers, Newark City Hall), The Enlightenment of Man” (still extant in the lobby of Weequahic High School, Newark) and “The Four Freedoms” (still extant in the lobby of the Fourteenth Avenue School, Newark). Lenson also produced murals for the New Jersey PavilIion of the 1939 World’s Fair, and a mural, ‘Mining,” for the U.S. Post Office in Mount Hope, West Virginia.
After the demise of the WPA, Lenson continued to paint energetically in his Nutley studio for the next 30 years. He exhibited in many solo and group exhibitions, both in museums and in galleries. In 1970, he was honored with a major one-man exhibition, “In Search of Heroes,” at the Montclair.Art Museum.
Lenson was an art critic for the “Newark Evening News” for the last 16 years of his life. During those years, he also taught painting at The Montclair Art Museum and at other institutions. Michael Lenson’s paintings are in the permanent collection of numerous museums, including The Princeton University Art Museum, The New Jersey State Museum, The Johnson Museum of Art (Cornell University), The Montclair Art Museum, The Nutley Museum, The Maier Museum of American Art, The Newark Museum, and others.
Lenson viewed his studio on The Enclosure as a perfect studio in a perfect town. Both he and his wife, June,loved raising their sons ln Nutley, and loved taking part in town activities. June was President of the Nutley Adult School for several years. The Lensons’ older son, David, is Chairman of the Department of Comparative Literature at the Universiry of Massachusetts. Barry, the Lenson’s’ younger son, is a writer who resides in Millburn. Barry is currently Director of the Nutley Museum and a member of the Board of Trustees of the Nutley Historical Society.