Mel Leipzig , a painter and art educator born in Brooklyn, based in Trenton and known by the art world for his realist portraits of family, friends and other subjects in their everyday settings, rendered in an impressionist style and unflinching detail, died on Saturday, his daughter said.

He was 90 and died in his sleep, said his daughter, Francesca Leipzig Picone.

“He lived a really long, good life,” Picone said. Recalling her father’s last birthday, on May 23, she added, “He even said himself, ‘I can’t believe I made it to 90.’”

Picone said her father died 18 years to the day after her mother — his wife — Mary Jo, who passed away on Nov. 1, 2007, at age 68.

In another timely twist of fate, Leipzig died amid a retrospective of his work, A Community Celebrates an Icon: Mel Leipzig a

See Full Page