Biography

Howard Leigh

Biography from the Archives of askART

Howard Leigh was born 9 August 1896 at Franklin Crossroads, Hardin County, KY, near the present day city of Cecilia, a son of James F. and Grace Leigh. By 1900 his parents had moved to Spiceland, Henry County, where James owned a farm. James Leigh died and Grace married a farmer named Henry J. Foster about 1910. During his lifetime Howard Leigh was a well known lithographer, painter, etcher, and teacher. His WWI draft card notes that he had brown hair and blue eyes.

Leigh graduated from Spiceland Academy in 1914 and Earlham College, Richmond, Indiana in 1918 where he earned a degree in biology. While completing his degree he also pursued drawing and sketching in his spare time. His first work as an illustrator was a series of sketches of Richmond street scenes published in The Little Paper, a Richmond publication. Leigh also showed his work at the Richmond Art Club. He also created illustrations for the Arbutus, the year book of Indiana University in 1918.

Martha Holt, a teacher at Spiceland Academy, was one of his early mentors as an artist. He also studied under John Albert Seaford and George Herbert Baker, both prominent Indiana artists. Leigh was accepted at Harvard Medical School in 1918 after graduating from Earlham and studied medicine with the intention of becoming a physician. However, after an exhibition of his sketches of Harvard buildings and local Boston scenes he was encouraged to pursue a career as an artist by fellow students and faculty. He also realized that his greatest enjoyment in studying medicine had been the opportunity to create scientific sketches. He left Harvard, moved to , and enrolled at L'Ecole des Beaux Arts where he studied under Paul Maurou.

While studying there, he was commissioned to work on a series of lithographs of buildings damaged during WWI and scenes from Paris and Rouen. A great many of these lithographs were purchased by the French Ministry of Fine Arts for the permanent collection of the Louvre after being shown at the Devamez Gallery in Paris.

Upon completing his studies in Paris he returned to the US where the first major showing of his lithography work was at Goodspeed's Book Shop in Boston in 1919. This was followed by exhibitions throughout the 1920s at the Art Institute of , Anderson Galleries and Robert B. Mussman Gallery in New York, the Paris Salon, and Salon, and numerous American and European cities.

Leigh's lithography work was a critical and financial success. An article about his second show at the Anderson Galleries appeared in The New York Times in April 1921. Walter Brookes Spong was his co- exhibitor:

In another room at the Anderson Galleries there opened last night the second annual exhibition of lithographs, etchings and dry points of the young artist Howard Leigh, which drew an interested audience of print lovers. Among the lithographs are the Towers of Tale, St. Patrick's, different views: St. Thomas's, The Heckscher Building, in Construction, and Rheims Cathedral, the Ruined Door, shown last year and of which only one print now remains. The Harkness Yale Mr. Leigh is to do in pastel. There are several studies of human figures in the etchings and dry points, Mr. Leigh's experience as a medical student for a time showing in the values of work In this line. Among the dry points is The Fan, a part of the head and eyes of a woman showing above the faintly outlined fan. It is Miss Hilda Spong in The Fan, and what she has said to be her best portrait. Mr. Leigh's work is being shown under the auspices of Mr. Grant and Miss Smith and will continue on view through to the 28th.

Hilda Spong was a famous actress, the daughter of artist Walter Brookes Spong. Though Leigh worked in Europe in the early 1920s he also continued to work in Indiana and did several sketches for Earlham College and was active in the Richmond art scene. In 1925 he returned to Spiceland and announced his intention to paint scenes of Indiana.

Leigh won the top prize for an oil painting at the Hoosier Salon in 1931. He worked briefly as a professor of art at Earlham in 1932 and 1933 before returning to traveling and painting. One of his favorite places was Mexico and he met and married Margarita Figueroa and then settled in her home town of Taxco. Leigh became very interested in the Zapotec civilization of Mexico and became a noted authority on their culture.

Leigh remained an active supporter of Earlham College and donated many of his works and those of other artists to the college. Leigh stopped painting in the late 1950s, instead devoting his time to the study of Zapotec culture. Leigh died on 25 April 1981 in Mitla, Oaxaca, Mexico. A retrospective exhibition of his work was held at Earlham College in 2002.

Researched, written and submitted by Kevin Daniel, University of graduate student of Library and Information Science with a focus on art Cataloging. Daniels wrote: "Many thanks to Bridget Alexander Peters for her invaluable assistance in sharing her research about Mr. Leigh with me."

Biography from Richmond Art Museum Howard Leigh was born in Cecilia, Kentucky but moved as a young boy with his family to the Quaker community of Spiceland, Indiana. He was inspired and encouraged by Martha Holt, a teacher at Spiceland Academy, and was later mentored by fellow Spiceland artist, John Seaford and Richmond Group artist, George Herbert Baker, while attending Earlham College. When Seaford first saw the work of Leigh he said, "This boy will be a master."

After graduating from Earlham in 1918, Leigh enrolled in Harvard Medical School but abandoned his medical career early in favor of pursuing his art by traveling to Paris where he enrolled in L'Ëcole des Beaux Arts studying lithography under Paul Maurou. His first significant public display was held in Boston at the Goodspeed's Book Shop in 1919. He received favorable reviews for his scenic and striking architectural subjects.

His debut in New York in 1920 featured 24 lithographs of the Great War and 23 scenes of Paris. A review in the "New York Times" had the comment that "Howard Leigh draws like a sculptor and paints like an architect, or at least in the manner in which one wishes an architect could paint, giving not only an elevation but the sense of a building, its purpose and material."

For the remainder of the decade, he traveled extensively to Berlin, Rome, Venice and Spain. A series of architectural lithographs included in an exhibition at the gallery Devambez, was where the French Ministry of Fine Arts purchased several works for the permanent collection in the Louvre.

After a short time as a professor of art at Earlham in the 30's, Leigh spent a great deal of time traveling. Specifically, he traveled to Mexico where he became fascinated with the populace and the splendor of the landscape. He married Margarita Figuera, a native of Taxco, Mexico, and the moved to Mitla, a small village in southern Mexico where he remained till his death in 1981.

Through Leigh's efforts, Earlham College now owns a valuable collection of lithographs, prints and etchings by world famous British and French artists. The collection included works by artists such as Henri Matisse, James McNeill Whistler and Joseph Pennell.

Among his honors are an honorable mention at the Paris Salon of 1927 and first prize in the Hoosier Salon of 1931. His works can be found in permanent collections in Richmond, Dayton, , and Cincinnati and in the New York and Boston public libraries.

Shaun Dingwerth Executive Director Richmond Art Museum