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J.A.LEITZ 

( b. 1961, CT, USA )

American painter and mathematician.  His family history spans both the sciences and the arts, from engineering to architectural design.  Leitz began his artistic training with formal instruction in color theory and expressive use of oils, water color, pastels, ink and graphite.  His first public showing was in 1967 at the Scott-Fanton museum.  

Early developmental influences stemmed from American museums where he learned the rudiments of composition and technique from studying the work of the old masters and made rapid strides on his own.   Simultaneously, Leitz studied mathematics and later became a Fellow of the Society of Actuaries and a Member of the American Academy of Actuaries.

Collections of early influence include the Frick Collection in New York, Hartford's Wadsworth Atheneum,  the New Britain Museum of American Art, the Yale Center for British Art in New Haven, and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston.   American and European artists of influence include Pennsylvania's Peale Family, Frederic Edwin Church, Charles Ethan Porter, Thomas Gainsborough, J.M.W. Turner, and Jean Chardin.

His artistic interpretation emerges through an impressionist-tonalist palette, capturing in a painterly manner a unique mood with a sense of time and place.  His subject matter includes a wide range of genres, including still-life, landscapes, marinescapes, cityscapes and abstraction of the above. 

In the 1990's, he painted in the studio of M. Roy.  In search of new techniques, Leitz most recently studied with abstract master Landfield at the Art Students League of New York and the National Academy of Design where Leitz developed an abstract expression that merged his admiration of the quality of Old Master paintings with a modern representation of the transient qualities of light, atmosphere and geometry.

Leitz has traveled with sketchbook in hand to cities on three continents, London, Paris, Nice, Cork, Venice, Madrid, Amsterdam, Casa Blanca, among them, the most influential being Paris, where he was introduced to Mssr. Popoff of Galerie Popoff & Cie, rue du Fbg-St-Honore, who encouraged Leitz to pursue the French tradition of exhibiting at the Salon d'Automne. 

His works have been handled by select galleries in New York, Greenwich, Essex, West Hartford as well as Boston and Nantucket.  His works enjoy public approval and commissioned works are included in private collections here and abroad.

He and his wife Rosemary often travel to the pink sand beaches of Bermuda that have become their favorite retreat and the ideal place to study unique light and color.  Leitz lives in West Hartford, CT and may be reached at 860.490.2892 or 860.523.8598.