Ben Haggard

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By the time I arrived at the Marchutz School in Aix-en-Provence, Leo had been dead for a year. I never met him, though I had known of him for years. In my universe, Leo was the patron saint of artists—the exemplar of a life lived for truth in visual terms.  He combined humility with genius, visionary brilliance with an ascetic economy of means.  For me, his work is still the best modern expression of the sacred in the inner and outer experience of the world. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Born in Nuremberg at the beginning of the 20^th century, Leo rejected formal training as a painter and followed his instincts to Berlin where he studied masterpieces in the museums.  Here he developed his ability to distinguish painters “in the line”—the deep inner artistic tradition stretching back 4000 years and beyond.  He saw that some painters depicted the surfaces of the visible world, while others captured its inner resonances.  He also encountered the work of Cezanne—still a relatively unrecognized force in the world.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Discovering Cezanne played a central role in Leo’s development as an artist and scholar.  He visited Aix-en-Provence, and eventually settled at the Chateaunoir where he lived and worked for decades, including a period during the war where he was forced into hiding.  Leo became one of the world’s premiere Cezanne scholars, and in his own work endeavored to extend and essentialize Cezanne’s discoveries. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Through his scholarship, friendship, and the school he eventually established in Aix, Leo influenced several generations of artists.  I owe my love of art and the pursuit of purity and honesty in my work to Leo’s example and teaching legacy.  That his importance has rarely been recognized beyond a small circle of students and collectors is to me the strongest indication of the poverty of officially sanctioned art in the 20^th century.