Chris Lehrecke & Gail Leboff

Born in Brooklyn, photographer Gail Leboff began her studies at the School of Visual Arts and went on to receive her BA and MA in Photography and Studio Art from NYU. The recipient of the prestigious Louis Tiffany Biennial Award, she lives and works in New York City and Vermont, the latter the setting of her “Atmosphere” works. “Atmosphere was photographed in Vermont during extreme weather shifts. I waited, in various locations, for moments when the clouds would begin to lift from the horizon, and then I would begin. I focused on the sky, thus transforming the landscape below into dark shadows and rendering the images with a monochromatic blue mood. I hope by doing this to create unsettling but mesmerizing images that would reflect our fragile but beautiful environment.” Leboff joined RALPH PUCCI in 1999.

Chris Lehrecke’s talent as a designer and his exquisite skill as a craftsman have firmly established him within the New York design community. Although a member of a generation of furniture designers who came of age in the 1980s, he has pursued a stylistic direction antithetical to the highly individualistic and often intentionally provocative work that characterized much of the innovative design of that decade. Marked by clarity and restraint, his furniture exemplifies a rational yet organic approach to design. His latest “Weimar” collection, noticeably different for Lehrecke because of its strong colors, was inspired by the architecture of his youth, as built by his father, and the shapes and palette of the Bauhaus. All of his woodwork is made in his studio in upstate New York. He frequently collaborates with his wife, jewelry designer Gabriella Kiss, who fabricates bronze hardware, as on their “After the Storm” collection utilizing trees felled in storms.