William Robinson Leigh (September 23, 1866 – March 11, 1955) was an American artist and
illustrator
An illustrator is an artist who specializes in enhancing writing or elucidating concepts by providing a visual representation that corresponds to the content of the associated text or idea. The illustration may be intended to clarify complicat ...
Berkeley County, West Virginia
Berkeley County is located in the Shenandoah Valley in the Eastern Panhandle region of West Virginia in the United States. The county is part of the Hagerstown- Martinsburg, MD- WV Metropolitan Statistical Area. As of the 2020 census, the co ...
. He entered the Maryland Institute for the Promotion of the Mechanic Arts (now known as
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 ...
) at age 14, then attended the Royal Academy in Munich. He returned to the United States after twelve years abroad and worked painting
cyclorama
A cyclorama is a panoramic image on the inside of a cylindrical platform, designed to give viewers standing in the middle of the cylinder a 360° view, and also a building designed to show a panoramic image. The intended effect is to make vie ...
s and as a magazine illustrator. An example is the cover illustration of the August 4, 1904 Leslie's Weekly featuring a policeman "Piloting Children to Safety at a Crowded New York Crossing."
He married twice, and fathered William Colston Leigh, Sr. (1901–1992). His first wife was Anna Seng Leigh, mother of his son, their marriage ended in a divorce sometime before 1906. His second wife was Ethel Traphagen Leigh (1883–1963), was the founder of
Traphagen School of Fashion
Traphagen School of Fashion was an art and design school in operation from 1923 to 1991, and was located at 1680 Broadway in New York City. The school was founded and directed by Ethel Traphagen Leigh (1883–1963) with a focus on the foundational ...
in New York City.
In 1906, Leigh traveled to the American West and maintained a studio in New York City. In 1926 he travelled to Africa at the invitation of
Carl Akeley
Carl Ethan Akeley (May 19, 1864 – November 17, 1926) was a pioneering American taxidermist, sculptor, biologist, conservationist, inventor, and nature photographer, noted for his contributions to American museums, most notably to the Milwauk ...
for the
American Museum of Natural History
The American Museum of Natural History (abbreviated as AMNH) is a natural history museum on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. In Theodore Roosevelt Park, across the street from Central Park, the museum complex comprises 26 inter ...
, and from this experience wrote and illustrated ''Frontiers of Enchantment: An Artist's Adventures in Africa''. In 1933, he wrote and illustrated ''The Western Pony.'' His adventures were chronicled in a number of popular magazines including Life, the Saturday Evening Post, and Colliers. He is known for painting the Grand Canyon and Yellowstone National Park, but his primary interest were the Hopi and Navajo Indians. In 1953 he was elected into the
National Academy of Design
The National Academy of Design is an honorary association of American artists, founded in New York City in 1825 by Samuel Morse, Asher Durand, Thomas Cole, Martin E. Thompson, Charles Cushing Wright, Ithiel Town, and others "to promote the fin ...
as an Associate member and became a full Academician in 1955.
Leigh also made
astrobiological
Astrobiology, and the related field of exobiology, is an interdisciplinary scientific field that studies the origins, early evolution, distribution, and future of life in the universe. Astrobiology is the multidisciplinary field that investig ...
art for the March 1908 issue of ''
Cosmopolitan
Cosmopolitan may refer to:
Food and drink
* Cosmopolitan (cocktail), also known as a "Cosmo"
History
* Rootless cosmopolitan, a Soviet derogatory epithet during Joseph Stalin's anti-Semitic campaign of 1949–1953
Hotels and resorts
* Cosmopoli ...
'', with four full-page illustrations of an article written by
Edmond Hamilton
Edmond Moore Hamilton (October 21, 1904 – February 1, 1977) was an American writer of science fiction during the mid-twentieth century.
Early life
Born in Youngstown, Ohio, he was raised there and in nearby New Castle, Pennsylvania. So ...
, born October 1904, described looking and re-looking at the issue as a defining experience in his life. "I wasn't yet able to read it, to read the article, but those pictures!"Tangent Online Presents: An Interview with Leigh Brackett & Edmond Hamilton Conducted by Dave Truesdale and Paul McGuire III. April 16–18, 1976. Tangent (tangentonline.com). Reprint from ''Tangent'' No. 5 (Summer 1976), probably with later thumbnail images. Retrieved 2016-07-08.
After his death, Leigh's New York studio was given to the
Gilcrease Museum
Gilcrease Museum, also known as the Thomas Gilcrease Institute of American History and Art, is a museum northwest of downtown Tulsa, Oklahoma housing the world's largest, most comprehensive collection of art of the American West, as well as a gro ...
in
Tulsa, Oklahoma
Tulsa () is the second-largest city in the state of Oklahoma and 47th-most populous city in the United States. The population was 413,066 as of the 2020 census. It is the principal municipality of the Tulsa Metropolitan Area, a region with ...
.
References
*Leigh, William Robinson Autobiography (MSS SC 171), L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University.