Kathryn Woodman Leighton (March 17, 1875 − July 1, 1952) was an American artist, based in Los Angeles, California, best known for her Western landscapes and for portraits of Native Americans.
Kathryn Woodman Leighton moved to Los Angeles with her husband in 1910. She had a studio at the couple's home on West 46th Street, in South Los Angeles.[4] She traveled to the Canadian Rockies in 1923,[5] and to Glacier National Park in 1925, to paint landscapes.[6] In 1926, she returned to Glacier National Park, this time as the guest of the Great Northern Railway, commissioned to paint scenes of life among the Blackfeet, including portraits of the tribal leaders.[7] The railroad used Leighton's paintings to promote Western tourism, and Leighton's work turned from landscapes to Native American portraits.[8][9] She often used Native American actors as models in her Los Angeles studio.[10] She painted a life-sized portrait of Los Angeles suffragist and clubwoman Florence Collins Porter in 1930.[11]
Her paintings were not innovative in form, but they were hailed as "distinctive" and "historical" for their content; "Kathryn Leighton has painted the Indian aristocracy as Van Dyke painted the British aristocracy," declared a Los Angeles Times critic.[12] However, another Los Angeles Times critic commented that the portraits "command my respect and admiration--and yet I do not personally like them."[13]
Her brother Frederic T. Woodman was mayor of Los Angeles from 1916 to 1919, and displayed many of Kathryn's paintings in the mayor's office.[10]
Personal life and legacy
Kathryn Woodman married attorney Edward Everett Leighton in 1900; they adopted a son, Everett Woodman Leighton, who followed his father into a law career. She was widowed when Edward died in 1941,[18][19] and she died in 1952.[20]