William R. Leigh

1866 – 1955

William R. Leigh

BORN IN

Berkeley County, West Virginia

KNOWN FOR

Frontier genre, landscape and animal paintings

Born near Falling Waters, West Virginia on a plantation a year after the Civil War, and raised in Baltimore, William Leigh became one of the foremost painters of the American West with a career of seventy-five years. Some people referred to him as the “Sagebrush Rembrandt”.

He was the son of impoverished Southern aristocrats and took his first art training at age 14 from Hugh Newell (1830-1915) at the Maryland Institute where he was regarded as one of the best students in his class. From 1883 to 1895, he studied in Europe, mainly at the Royal Academy in Munich with Ludwig Loefftz. From 1891 to 1896, he painted six cycloramas or murals in the round, a giant German panorama.

Sold At Lone Star Art Auction

136954926_1_x
William R. Leigh
(1866 – 1955)

Buffalo

, 1956
bronze
16 x 20 x 10 inches
Sold for: $15,600