Olive Ellzey Leonhardt (1895 -1963) was an illustrator and artist. She was born in

Jackson, Mississippi Jackson, officially the City of Jackson, is the Capital city, capital of and the List of municipalities in Mississippi, most populous city in the U.S. state of Mississippi. The city is also one of two county seats of Hinds County, Mississippi, ...

, the daughter of Vernon Clifton Ellzey and Caroline Turnipseed. She attended

Newcomb College H. Sophie Newcomb Memorial College, or Newcomb College, was the coordinate women's college of Tulane University located in New Orleans, in the U.S. state of Louisiana. It was founded by Josephine Louise Newcomb in 1886 in memory of her daughter. ...

(1914–15), The

New York School of Fine and Applied Arts Parsons School of Design, known colloquially as Parsons, is a private art and design college located in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City. Founded in 1896 after a group of progressive artists broke away from established Manhatta ...

(later to be renamed Parsons) in 1915-16, and The

Art Students League The Art Students League of New York is an art school at American Fine Arts Society, 215 West 57th Street in Manhattan, New York City, New York. The League has historically been known for its broad appeal to both amateurs and professional artists ...

in 1926, where she studied with

George Bridgman George Brant Bridgman (November 5, 1864 – December 16, 1943) was a Canadian-American painter, writer, and teacher in the fields of anatomy and figure drawing. Bridgman taught anatomy for artists at the Art Students League of New York for some ...

and

Homer Boss Homer Boss (1882–1956) was an American painter and printmaker. He taught at the Art Students League of New York for two decades, and he had a studio in Santa Cruz, New Mexico for the remaining 25 years of his life. One of his portraits is at the ...

. Olive Leonhardt drew the covers for '' The Double Dealer: A National Magazine from The South'' in 1921-22 and showed at the New Orleans Arts and Crafts Club. In 1938 Dale Press published a book of her drawings called "New Orleans: Drawn and Quartered" with a foreword by

Lyle Saxon Lyle Saxon (18911946) was a writer and journalist who reported for ''The Times-Picayune'' in New Orleans, Louisiana. He directed the Federal Writers' Project Works Progress Administration (WPA) guide to Louisiana. Life Saxon was born on Septem ...

. She had a one-woman show at the Charles Morgan Gallery in 1939. In the summer of 1947,

Anaïs Nin Angela Anaïs Juana Antolina Rosa Edelmira Nin y Culmell (February 11, 1903 – January 14, 1977; , ) was a French-born American diarist, essayist, novelist, and writer of short stories and erotica. Born to Cuban parents in France, Nin was the d ...

visited Leonhardt in New Orleans with

Gore Vidal Eugene Luther Gore Vidal (; born Eugene Louis Vidal, October 3, 1925 – July 31, 2012) was an American writer and public intellectual known for his epigrammatic wit, erudition, and patrician manner. Vidal was bisexual, and in his novels and ...

and wrote this in her journal: "She is painting her dreams, she is painting people and New Orleans filtered through her vision. She sees the flaws, the ironies." (p. 202-3 of ''The Diary of Anaïs Nin''. Vol four). Leonhardt's oils were included in the post-

Katrina Katrina or Katrine may refer to: People * Katrina (given name) * Katrine (given name) Meteorology * List of storms named Katrina, a list of tropical cyclones designated as Katrina ** Hurricane Katrina, an exceptionally powerful Atlantic hurrican ...

show at The

New Orleans Museum of Art The New Orleans Museum of Art (or NOMA) is the oldest fine arts museum in the city of New Orleans. It is situated within City Park, a short distance from the intersection of Carrollton Avenue and Esplanade Avenue, and near the terminus of the ...

in the 2007 show entitled "The New Orleans Arts and Crafts Club: An Artistic Legacy" and the 2009 show called "Women Artists in Louisiana, 1825-1965: A Place of Their Own." A revived interest in art of the 1930s has led to the 2012 show at The Hermitage Museum and Gardens in Norfolk, Virginia called "Drawn and Quartered: Olive Leonhardt, 1939 Revisited".

References

*''The Romantic New Orleanians'' by Robert Tallant. E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc. 1950 p. 316 *''Dixie Bohemia: A French Quarter Circle in the 1920s'' by John Shelton Reed. ( p. 10, 26, 41, 48, 83, 100) *''Louisiana: a Guide to the State'' by the Louisiana Writer's Project, 1941 p. 170 *''Natalie Scott: A Magnificent Life'' by John W Scott, 2008. p. 475 {{DEFAULTSORT:Leonhardt, Olive 1895 births 1963 deaths Artists from Mississippi American women painters 20th-century American painters American illustrators Art Students League of New York alumni American women illustrators 20th-century American women artists