Leo J Meissner

Leo Meissner was born in 1895 in Hamtramck, Michigan, amidst the rapidly industrializing landscape of Detroit. At the age of fifteen, he enrolled in the Detroit Fine Art Academy, where he studied under John P. Wicker (1860-1931). However, as the son of Bohemian immigrant parents with limited financial resources, Meissner had to balance his formal art education with a series of odd jobs to support himself. From around 1910 until he enlisted in World War I, Meissner managed to combine his studies with working, honing his skills as he could.

While serving overseas during the war, Meissner had a transformative experience aboard the troop ship crossing the Atlantic. The tumultuous swells of the ocean captivated him, and he resolved to make the sea a central theme in his artistic work. This fascination with the ocean would remain a defining subject in his painting and printmaking for the rest of his career.

After the war, Meissner returned to the Detroit Fine Art Academy, where he won a scholarship to study at the Art Students League in New York. There, he had the opportunity to learn from prominent painters Robert Henri and George Luks. Equipped with new skills, he secured a position as assistant art director at Charm magazine. By 1923, having saved enough money, Meissner took a much-needed vacation, eager to find new inspiration for his work. He had heard that the rugged coast of Maine offered excellent opportunities for an artist to practice drawing and painting natural elements like rocks, surf, and the sea. After taking the night boat to Boston, Meissner traveled to Boothbay Harbor, Maine, and soon made his way by fishing boat to Monhegan Island, where he would find the artistic haven that would shape much of his future work.

Although Leo J. Meissner was a skilled oil painter and an even more accomplished pastellist, it is his expertise in woodcut, linoleum block printing, and wood engraving that has earned him lasting recognition as a notable artist. His relief block prints garnered widespread acclaim Meissner was featured four times in 50 Prints of the Year  (1927, 1928, 1929, and 1933)-and his work was showcased in virtually every major American printmaking exhibition. Over the course of his five-decade career, Meissner produced more than 150 relief prints, which were displayed in over 60 solo exhibitions. A significant retrospective of his work was held in 1963 at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, featuring 72 of his pieces.

Meissner received numerous accolades for his printmaking, including prizes from prestigious institutions such as the Library of Congress (1943, 1945), the Wichita Art Association (1937), Southern Printmakers (1937, 1938), and the Detroit Institute of Arts (1943, 1945). His landscapes were primarily inspired by New York City, the Maine coast, Monhegan Island, rural North Carolina, southern Florida, and Arizona.

Monhegan Island was the heart of Meissner's artistic life for much of his career, serving as the primary inspiration for many of his printmaking subjects. However, in the 1920s and 1930s, he also created remarkable Manhattan-themed works, including iconic images of the Plaza Hotel, Future New York, studies of Greenwich Village, and scenes of lower Manhattan life in the early 20th century. In the early 1950s, Meissner spent time in North Carolina's Great Smoky Mountains, capturing rural mountain cabins, farms, and rushing streams in his prints. Later, he spent a season in Arizona, where he contrasted the lush, verdant landscapes of North Carolina with the arid, rugged beauty of the desert and its flora.

In addition to his own printmaking achievements, Meissner was instrumental in establishing the Leo J. Meissner Prize for Printmaking at the National Academy of Design, awarded annually for excellence in the medium. The prize has been granted to many of the most distinguished American printmakers in recent decades. Meissner's prints are held in the collections of major American museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Library of Congress, New York Public Library, Detroit Institute of Arts, Baltimore Museum of Art, Currier Gallery of Art, Farnsworth Museum, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Smith College Museum of Art, Bates College Museum of Art, University of Michigan Museum of Art, University of Maine Museum of Art, and many others.