Leopold Seyffert

Leopold Seyffert ca. 1910

Leopold Gould Seyffert (January 6, 1887 – June 13, 1956) was an American artist. Born in California, Missouri and raised as a child in Colorado and then Pittsburgh, his career brought him eventually to New York City, via Philadelphia and Chicago. In New York the dealer Macbeth established him as one of the leading portraitists of the 20th century and his over 500 portraits continue to decorate the galleries, rooms and halls of many of America's museums and institutions.

Overview

Among the many people that Seyffert painted were figures of America's cultural, business and political elite. His subjects included Henry Clay Frick (Heinz History Center, Pittsburgh), Fritz Kreisler (National Portrait Gallery), Andrew Mellon (Choate School and BNY Mellon Collection), John Wanamaker (US Postal Museum), Edward T. Stotesbury (Stotesbury Collection), Elizabeth Arden, Samuel Gompers (New York Historical Society), John Graver Johnson (Corcoran Art Gallery), railroad financier Edward Brinton Smith (Private Collection), Charles Lindbergh and David Sarnoff.

Seyffert was recipient of a long string of prizes and honors given by the major American art organizations and museums, often for his non-commissioned work. In these paintings he painted with a vigorous brushwork and palette (as his older contemporaries, Robert Henri and George Bellows, sometimes did in their paintings of children).

As a young artist, Seyffert traveled three times to Europe in 1910, 1912, and 1914. Like many young artists he painted from Velasquez in the Prado and was influenced by Hals, Van Gogh and Goya. During these trips he used ordinary people as subjects. Their unique faces and colorful costumes inspired some of his earliest works. Later his portraits, nudes and flower still lifes kept the lessons learned from these years while adding a more refined and simpler style.
Seyffert's life and career spanned the first half of the 20th century. He lived, taught and painted in several historic cities and many of his sitters played a significant role in American history, particularly during the roaring 20s.

Childhood and studies

Seyffert's ancestors' origins were in the Saxony region of Germany, with his grandparents hailing from Zwikau, a village near Leipzig. His grandfather and father, Hermann (at age 4) arrived in New York in 1854. The family traveled to St. Louis and then went west settling with other German immigrants in Missouri.

Seyffert was born in the town of California, Moniteau County, Missouri in 1887, the second youngest of seven, to Hermann and Emma Tweihaus Seyffert. The following year his family moved to Colorado Springs, Colorado, where they built a cabin in the foothills of the Cheyenne Mountains on the Cheyenne Creek, near what is today The Broadmoor resort. In 1890 his father died after falling off a roof, leaving all the family having to work or marry early. Leopold's earliest art exposure came from his briefly studying with an artist named La Salle but he also painted cakes in the local bakery and glass eyes for a taxidermist. His older brother Lou moved to Pittsburgh and after getting a job in the office of Standard Oil geologist John Worthington, he sent for "Lee" and their mother to move east. In 1904, en route they visited the St. Louis World's Fair where he saw his first painting exhibition. Once in Pittsburgh Leopold began working as an office boy for Worthington and his artistic talent came to the attention of his boss. For two years he studied at the Stevenson Art School with Horatio Stevenson while living with the Worthington family and later Worthington loaned him the money to attend the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts