Leigh, William 1866 - 1955
William R. Leigh was born in West Virginia and spent his boyhood on a farm. At age fourteen he was sent to the Maryland Institute in Baltimore to begin his art training. Although from a very poor family, he managed to spend twelve years in Europe where he studied at the Royal Academy in Munich, Germany. His work there on murals and panoramas earned him numerous awards.
Upon returning to the U.S., he opened a studio in New York and did illustrations for "Scribner's Magazine". It was not until he was 40 years old that he was able to see the West which had occupied his thoughts for a long time. He was offered free passage to New Mexico in exchange for a painting commissioned by the Santa Fe Railroad. The painting was so well received that orders for more soon followed. This enabled him to remain in the Southwest for an extended period, sketching and painting every aspect of life in that region.
His bold use of color depicted the clear light and brillant hues of the West as he saw it. It was during this phase of his career that he came to be known as the "Sagebrush Rembrandt". In 1921 Leigh married Ethel Traphagen, a women's clothing designer, and together they established the successful Traphagen School of Fashion in New York City.
In 1926 and 1928, he made two trips to Africa. On these trips he did many paintings of big game, and returning to New York he did the backgrounds for animal habitat groups in Akeley African Hall of the American Museum of Natural History. After his death, Leigh's widow presented his entire studio to the Gilcrease Institute of American History and Art in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
