Arts and Letters

Leon Kroll departed from us in his eighty-ninth year on October 25, 1974 near his beloved home in Gloucester, Massachusetts, where he had spent the summer months for many years. He was a respected member of this Academy for more than a quarter of a century. Elected to the Institute in 1930, his membership extended over a longer period than all but one among the members now living.

Born in New York City on December 6, 1884, Leon Kroll worked his way through the Art Students League; subsequently he studied at the art school conducted by the National Academy of Design. In 1908 he went to Paris where he studied at the Académie Julien and there met his bride-to-be; they were married in 1923. His wife was his constant and devoted companion and an inspiration to him for half a century.

I first met Leon Kroll in Washington early in the 1930s when, as a member of the National Commission of Fine Arts, I was present when he presented his sketches for mural paintings that he had been commissioned to execute for placement in the Justice Department Building on Constitution Avenue. Some twenty years later I met him again after he had been commissioned to paint a large mural painting for the entrance lobby of the Shriver Hall Auditorium at The Johns Hopkins University where I served as a member of the institution's Architectural Advisory Council. Under the provisions of the will of Mr. Shriver, a citizen of Baltimore who gave funds for the building which bears his name, there was a clause that called for the embellishment of the Shriver Hall Auditorium with four large murals; the subject for each one was carefully specified. The subject of the one for the entrance lobby, assigned to Kroll, was "The Beauties of Baltimore in the last quarter of the 19th Century." This mural was to depict certain Baltimore ladies of the "gay nineties." Leon Kroll has shown them resplendent in their long summer, ruffled, crinoline dresses and, in addition, wide-brimmed, beribboned hats and parasols; all of these ladies are taking part in a gay garden party. Who else could have done full justice to such a subject?

Leon Kroll was a prolific painter for almost three quarters of a century. During his long and active career he produced many murals, easel paintings-nudes, for which he was famous, still life and landscapes—as well as lithographs. He won twenty-four national and international prizes and awards, among them First Prize in the Carnegie International in 1936 and the Benjamin Altman Prize Award for landscape painting in 1965. His works are represented in many museums in this country and abroad including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Whitney Museum and the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington and the San Francisco Museum of Art. He exhibited in many of the large museums in this country and in Europe where his paintings were always acclaimed.

Kroll recognized the necessity and the value of imparting his talents to aid young painters and he taught in New York at the Art Students League and the National Academy of Design; in Chicago he taught at the Art Institute and, in Philadelphia, at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.

For many years Leon Kroll served as chairman of this Academy's Committee on Art. His catholicity of taste, himself a traditionalist, caused his services on art juries to be widely sought after. I have never heard him condemn the modern movement in art; in fact, he was one of the most tolerant of the artists of the "old school" whom I knew. He quickly recognized, however, the work of the charlatans.

We have lost a distinguished artist who enriched his time through his work as well as by his character. The notable products of his mind, expressed through his fingers to his brush, will live on to inspire future generations.

I shall close this inadequate memorial tribute to a staunch friend, and one of our most beloved members, a painter of international as well as national renown, with lines that I sent to Mrs. Kroll upon learning of Leon's death on October 26, 1974; they were the closing lines of a letter of sympathy that came from the heart of a friend.

Devoted artist, mellow as old wine,
Your parting from us leaves a void, a vacancy
Among the ranks of painters of our time
That never can be filled, not in this century.
Your paintings live! They'll long electrify
The thousands who will gaze upon your artistry
Spread o'er this land and ever magnify
Your talents, long distinguished for their honesty.
Not many leave a greater, nobler heritage
To be remembered by over the passing years;
And so your spirit lives despite the current rage
For work undisciplined that multiplies our fears.

The future of the arts is grim indeed;
May your sound influence endure and lead!

G.D.C.