THE HOLD UP (THE AMBUSH) BY WILLIAM R. LEIGH
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William R. Leigh The Hold Up (The Ambush) 1903 Oil on canvas 32 3/4 inches x 22 3/4 inches |
| Of the painters who gained fame as delineators of the American West around the turn of the century, William Robinson Leigh is routinely cited as the most thoroughly trained. A native of West Virginia, Leigh was the son of impoverished Southern aristocrats. He spent fifteen years studying drawing, painting and composition in Baltimore and Munich and apprenticing as a mural painter before establishing himself as an artist and illustrator in New York City in 1896. A decade later, fulfilling a boyhood dream, he went west and fell in love with the desert country, While he would venture into other areas from time to time, he was primarily a Western artist. |