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Leigh, William R. (1866 - 1955)

Currency:USD Category:Art Start Price:20,000.00 USD Estimated At:20,000.00 - 30,000.00 USD
Leigh, William R. (1866 - 1955)
<strong>Leigh, William R. </strong>
(1866 - 1955)

<strong>Northern Waso Nyiro, 1926</strong>

oil on canvas mounted on board
12 x 16 inches


William Robinson Leigh was born in Berkeley County, West Virginia, and began drawing at an early age. When he was twelve, W.W. Corcoran (founder of the Corcoran Gallery of Art) paid Leigh $100 for a drawing. After three years of training at the Maryland Institute of Art in Baltimore, he left for Europe to study. Most of his twelve years in Europe were spent studying In 1897, after Leigh returned to New York, he made his reputation as an illustrator for leading national magazines.

In 1926-27 and again in 1928 Leigh traveled to Africa in the company of the taxidermist/sculptor/inventor Carl Akeley, under the auspices of the American Museum of Natural
History in New York. Leigh executed numerous sketches during these trips, many of which appeared in Leigh's account of his African adventures, published in 1938 as Frontiers of Enchantment. For the Museum of Natural History he executed dozens of oil sketches of
the African landscape on 12 x 16 inch canvasboard. These works became the basis for a series of
Museum's African Hall, which opened to the public in May of 1936. These African paintings bear
all of the hallmarks of Leigh's mature style and display the vibrant palette and highly articulate brushwork for which his work is renowned, regardless of the subject matter.





Provenance:
Private Collection, New Mexico

Literature:
William R. Leigh, <i>Frontiers of Enchantment: An Artist's Adventures in Africa, </i>
New York: Simon and Shuster, 1938
David C. Hunt, <i>William R. Leigh: African Landscapes,</i> New York: Gerald Peters
Gallery, 1998