Leon Kroll (1884-1974)

“Leon Kroll has the eye of a hawk and the heart of a dove.” -Jerome Myers

Leon A. Kroll was a painter and a teacher whose association with the other members of the Ashcan school seems a funny one at first blush. But while numerous critics hailed his work as serious and academic — “the artistry displayed in this picture is so subtle that it conceals itself,” one wrote — he painted New York City street and park scenes with the same free hand as his Ashcan peers George Bellows and Robert Henri, and with the same frequency as the more classical nudes people often associated him with (a writer for Life dubbed him the “dean of U.S. nude painters”). 

Born in New York City in 1884 to a family of musicians, Kroll studied at the Art Students League with John Henry Twachtman, the National Academy of Design, and the Academy Julian in Paris (where his encounters with the art of Paul Cezanne made a huge impact on his later work). A one-man show upon his return to the States in 1910 put Kroll’s name on the map, and put him in contact with The Eight (with whom he was a regular exhibitor, though he was not an official member). The honors soon started rolling in: a coveted spot at the 1913 Armory Show; teaching appointments at the Art Students League, National Academy of Design, School for the Art Institute of Chicago, and Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts; and mural commissions throughout the 1930s for the Department of Justice Building, the Indiana Statehouse, and Johns Hopkins University.