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 complic ...

, who was known for his painted Western scenes.

Biography

William Robinson Leigh was born on September 23, 1866, at Maidstone Manor Farm,

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 university, private art school, 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 t ...

) 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 view ...

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 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 int ...

, 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 ...

as an Associate member and became a full Academician in 1955. Leigh also made astrobiological 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 H. G. Wells, "The Things that Live on Mars", which speculated about Martian life. Science fiction writer

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 ...

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 wit ...

References

*Leigh, William Robinson
Autobiography
(MSS SC 171), L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University.

External links

Biography
at Medicine Man Gallery
Artist Bio
at Ackerman's Fine Art, LLC
''Bears in the Path (Surprise)'', 1904
at Sid Richardson Museum – with biography
''The Hold Up (The Ambush)'', 1903
at Sid Richardson Museum *

{{DEFAULTSORT:Leigh, William Robinson 1866 births 1955 deaths Artists of the American West People from Hedgesville, West Virginia 19th-century American painters American male painters 20th-century American painters Artists from West Virginia Federal Art Project artists 19th-century American male artists 20th-century American male artists