Abstract decorative cityscape by Leonard "Parker Lee" Leibsohn (American, 1924 - 1995). Known for: Abstraction and realism, landscape, marine and still life painting Name variants: Parker Lee Image, 22.5"H x 15"W Frame, 30.5"H x 23"W x 2"D Leo Leibsohn was born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa on November 2, 1924. His father, Nate Leibsohn, was born in Czarist Russia in 1890; his mother in Imperial Germany in 1893. After service in the Army Air Force during World War II, Leibsohn went on to the University of Iowa, where he received a B.A. in Fine Arts in 1950. After he finished his studies there he moved to Colorado, where he received his Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Denver. The following is a partial biography which covers the basics of this prolific artist. In 1953 the young painter moved to Colorado Springs, which had a long history as an art colony. There he came under the lasting influence of the pioneering modernist Emerson Woelffer (1914-2003), who was teaching at the Fine Arts Center and who was painting in a large studio near the newly constructed Air Force Academy. Leibsohn also came to know the modernist Robert Motherwell (1915-1991), who came to Colorado Springs to teach in the summer of 1954. It was in Colorado where Leibsohn's work began to mature and he achieved the balance between realism and abstraction that he had been seeking. He had his first solo exhibition at the George Nix Gallery there and was named "Painter of the Year" by the Colorado Springs Art Guild. Leibsohn won the Purchase Prize sponsored by the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center and then was given a solo exhibition at that prestigious institution. While living in the Mile High State he participated in a long series of exhibitions and was awarded first prize in the Annual Competition for Colorado Artists. In 1955, Leibsohn moved to Oklahoma City, where he began teaching and was invited to do a one-man show at the Municipal Art Gallery, then run by the famous Oklahoma painter Nan Sheets (1885-1976). In Oklahoma City he won the Association of Oklahoma Artists Purchase Award and the F. Allen Brooks Memorial Purchase Award, and in 1956 he was invited to do a solo exhibition at the University of Oklahoma. It was in 1957 that Leibsohn first struck out for the coast, opening a bohemian studio in Los Angeles. He began showing his work with the irrepressible art impresario Martin Lowitz in Beverly Hills and exhibiting in regional competitions. Martin Lowitz was a colorful character who represented both fine art artists and prolific lesser lights who helped him provide works for hotels and other commercial accounts. In many cases, artists worked under more than one name, doing "serious" work under their own name and more rapid commercial work under a nom de plume. In the mid 1960s, Leibsohn began working with gallery owner and agent Howard Morseburg (1924-2012), who purchased his work and then sold it to other galleries and arranged to exhibit it throughout the western United States. This relationship would be one of the longest of the painter's artistic career, a business relationship and friendship that lasted for more than twenty-five years. Morseburg sold Leibsohn's stylized florals and Cubistic urban landscapes steadily, and in recent years these works have finally begun to reach the secondary market as collections assembled in the 1960s and 1970s have been dispersed.