Leonard Marion Bahr (May 12, 1905 – July 25, 1990) was an American portrait painter, muralist, illustrator and educator. He worked for many years as a painting professor at the

Maryland Institute College of Art The Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) is a private art and design college in Baltimore, Maryland. It was founded in 1826 as the Maryland Institute for the Promotion of the Mechanic Arts, making it one of the oldest art colleges in the U ...

(MICA).

Personal life

Leonard Marion Bahr was born on May 12, 1905 in Maryland.Beneficiary Identification Records Locator Subsystem (BIRLS) Death File. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.Painters: Leonard Marion Bahr.
Maryland at a Glance. Maryland State Archives. Retrieved January 25, 2014. He married Florence E. Riefle, who had been a student at

Maryland Institute The Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) is a private art and design college in Baltimore, Maryland. It was founded in 1826 as the Maryland Institute for the Promotion of the Mechanic Arts, making it one of the oldest art colleges in the ...

(now Maryland Institute College of Art), in 1934 and they had three children, Beth, Leonard, and Mary.Jack Dawson
"A Family of Artists."
''The Sun Magazine,'' January 10, 1982. Leonard died July 25, 1990.

Artist

Bahr created realistic landscape paintings, still lifes and portraits.

Portraits and paintings with people

In 1930, Leonard started his professional painting career while still a student, beginning with two portraits of Baltimore's Mayor Preston. He made portraits of Bishop Noble C. Powell, various doctors and administrators at

Johns Hopkins Hospital The Johns Hopkins Hospital (JHH) is the teaching hospital and biomedical research facility of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, located in Baltimore, Maryland, U.S. It was founded in 1889 using money from a bequest of over $7 million (1873 mo ...

, and other prominent individuals. The State of Maryland commissioned him to replicate the historical portrait, by

John Wollaston John Wollaston may refer to: * John Wollaston (priest) (1791–1856), Anglican clergyman and settler in Western Australia * John Wollaston (painter) John Wollaston (active between 1742 and 1775) was an English painter of portraits who was acti ...

, of

Daniel Carroll Daniel Carroll (July 22, 1730May 7, 1796) was an American politician and plantation owner from Maryland and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. He supported the American Revolution, served in the Confederation Congress, was a dele ...

, which is now located on the first floor of the

Maryland State House The Maryland State House is located in Annapolis, Maryland. It is the oldest U.S. state capitol in continuous legislative use, dating to 1772 and houses the Maryland General Assembly, plus the offices of the Governor and Lieutenant Governor. In 1 ...

. Bahr made a painting of his brother, Maurice, at work underneath a Ford Model T automobile. Within the "rough grained" wood frame was a painting made of gray, black and dark brown oil paint. After the initial exhibition at the

Baltimore Museum of Art The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) in Baltimore, Maryland, United States, is an art museum that was founded in 1914. The BMA's collection of 95,000 objects encompasses more than 1,000 works by Henri Matisse anchored by the Cone Collection of ...

, it traveled in a labor and art tour across the United States.

Biblical themes

A Christian, Bahr painted Biblical themes, including ''Christ in War'' (1964) and an altar painting of Christ at Gethsemane for Our Savior's Evangelical Lutheran Church in

Lansdowne, Maryland Lansdowne is a census-designated place in southern Baltimore County, Maryland, United States, located just south of Baltimore city. As of the 2010 census, it had a population of 8,409. At the 2000 census and earlier, the area was delineated as par ...

. He made an illustrated book of his drawings depicting the 23rd Psalm of David that was published in 1933.

Murals

Arrival of Mary Carroll Caton at Castle Thunder

Bahr painted murals for the

Public Works of Art Project The Public Works of Art Project (PWAP) was a New Deal program designed to employ artists that operated from 1933 to 1934. The program was headed by Edward Bruce, under the United States Treasury Department with funding from the Civil Works Admin ...

(1933–34). In 1934 he made the mural of Mary Caroll (Polly) Caton, daughter of lawyer, statesman and Contintental Congress representative Charles Carroll. The mural entitled ''Arrival of Mary Carroll Caton at Castle Thunder'' was made for the

Catonsville High School Catonsville High School (CHS) is a four-year public high school in Baltimore County, Maryland, United States. It is located on the southwest side of the county close to the Baltimore City border near Anne Arundel and Howard County, just outside t ...

library. In it, she arrived at the Caton Manor Estate, which was her father's gift to her when she married Richard Caton. It is "presumedly" her husband who greeted her as she exited the carriage. The high school was renovated in the 1960s and the mural was lost in the process. The same year, he made ''Slaves Rolling Hogsheads of Tobacco Down a Road'' for the school's library. In it, slaves are rolling casks of tobacco to

Elkridge Landing Elkridge Landing was a Patapsco River seaport in Maryland, and is now part of Elkridge, Maryland. The historic Elkridge Furnace Inn site resides within the Patapsco Valley State Park. Geography Elkridge is located in present-day Howard County, ...

on Rolling Road. Historically slaves rolled the tobacco

hogsheads A hogshead (abbreviated "hhd", plural "hhds") is a large cask of liquid (or, less often, of a food commodity). More specifically, it refers to a specified volume, measured in either imperial or US customary measures, primarily applied to alcoho ...

from farms to the Elkridge Landing seaport on the

Patapsco River The Patapsco River mainstem is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map , accessed April 1, 2011 river in central Maryland that flows into the Chesapeake Bay. The river's tidal port ...

where they would be shipped.Elizabeth Janney.
Elkridge
''. Arcadia Publishing; 8 July 2013. . p. 10–11. A preliminary drawing for the library murals is held at the Smithsonian. He made two more murals for the Baltimore Municipal Aquarium at Druid Hill Park.

World War II

His service as Lt. Commander in the Navy during World War II, included illustrating Navy life for various military magazines.

Other information

In April 1933, Bahr exhibited at the first annual exhibition of the Maryland Painters, Sculptors and Printmakers at the Baltimore Museum of Art. Leonard served on art boards and juries and exhibited his work widely, winning many prizes for his artistic eye. Articles about him or his works were published in ''American Artist'', ''The Appalachian South'', ''Gardens Houses and People'', ''The Baltimore Sun Magazine'', and the ''Baltimore Sun''. Maryland photographer

Emily Hayden Emily Hayden is a former camogie Camogie ( ; ga, camógaíocht ) is an Irish stick-and-ball team sport played by women. Camogie is played by 100,000 women in Ireland and worldwide, largely among Irish communities. A variant of the game o ...

took a series of photographs of Bahr painting outdoors, which are in the Maryland Historical Society archives. In December 1980 and January 1981, Maryland Institute College of Art held a retrospective of his fifty years as a painter. In the 1980s he was filmed for a video entitled "A Painter's Portrait."

Educator

Bahr taught beginning and advanced painting classes at the

for more than 50 years, beginning when he was an undergraduate. He taught day and night classes on the weekdays and Saturdays for much of his career. In 1980, he retired with honors for service. Two years later, he was still teaching one painting class in the fall and spring semesters. Bahr also gave private lessons.

Collections

Leonard's history and artworks have been published and are in private and public collections, including the Academy Art Museum in Easton, Maryland; University of Arizona; the

Peabody Conservatory of Music The Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University, The Johns Hopkins University is a Private university, private music school, conservatory and College-preparatory school, preparatory school in Baltimore, Maryland. It was founded in 1857 and ...

; the

Corcoran Gallery of Art The Corcoran Gallery of Art was an art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, that is now the location of the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design, a part of the George Washington University. Overview The Corcoran School of the Arts & Design ...

; and the Elkridge Heritage Society.

Works

The following is a selected list of Bahr's works. There are images and information for dozens more works with the Maryland State Archives. ;Portraits * ''Miss Ruth Baetjer'', Union Memorial Hospital, 1974 * ''Daughter of Dr. and Mrs. Willem Bosma'', 1977, Private collection * ''

'' (1730-1796), oil on canvas, 48 x 38", 1975,

, First Floor, Room 107''Daniel Carroll.''
Maryland State Archives. Retrieved January 25, 2014.
Maryland State Archives. Retrieved January 25, 2014. * ''The Demuth Children,'' 1970, The H.E. Demuth Jr. Collection * ''Ellen'', 1974, Private collection * ''May Garrettson Evans,'' (1866-1947), oil on canvas, 38 x 28", 1947, Peabody Art Collection.
The Peabody Collection. Maryland State Archives. Retrieved January 25, 2014. * ''Dr. George Finney,'' Johns Hopkins Hospital, 1973 ''Dr. George Finney,''
Special Collections. Maryland State Archives. Retrieved January 25, 2014. * ''

Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico an ...

'', 1930 * ''Mary'', 1964 * ''Mary in Robe'', 1948, Private collection * ''Nude in Wicker Chair'', 1970 * ''The Rt. Rev. Bishop Noble C. Powell,'' Episcopal Diocese of Maryland, 1963''The Rt. Rev. Bishop Noble C. Powell.''
Special Collections. Maryland State Archives. Retrieved January 25, 2014. * ''Unknown Man'', 1939 * ''Lois Crawford Winslow'', 1939 * ''Norbert Witt,'' Noxell Corporation, 1973''Norbert Witt.''
Special Collections. Maryland State Archives. Retrieved January 25, 2014. * ''The Seers: Ambrose & Olga Worrall'', 1965 ;Landscapes * ''Locust Grove'', 1980 * ''Rain Squall and Sun'', 1972 * ''Rushing Water'', 1955 * ''Valley Landscape'', 1970 ;Other works * ''Ballerina Resting'' * ''Big Chair'', 1978 * ''Death and Transfiguration'', 1965 * ''Girl in Straw Hat'' * ''Good Earth'', 1952 * ''Louisiana Belle'', 1946 * ''Pink House'', 1936 * ''Red Cloth'', 1960''Red Cloth.''
Special Collections. Maryland State Archives. Retrieved January 25, 2014.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bahr, Leonard 1905 births 1990 deaths 20th-century American painters American people of German descent American male painters American muralists American portrait painters Artists from Baltimore Public Works of Art Project artists People from Elkridge, Maryland Maryland Institute College of Art faculty American illustrators 20th-century American male artists