Biography from AskART:
| Leonie Weisser was born October 5, 1890, near Seguin, Texas, in Four Oaks, where she grew up. She first studied art in 1905 with Minnie Stanford at the Coronal Institute, a private Methodist school, when the family moved to San Marcos, Texas. She graduated in 1908. In 1908-1909, she also studied at the College of Industrial Arts (now Texas Woman's University), Denton, and Southwestern University, Georgetown, in 1909-1910 and 1913-1914. She later studied privately with John E. Jenkins and Robert J. Onderdonk in San Antonio, and Stanford, again, in San Marcos.
The loss of her husband, Fredrick W. Weisser, whom she had married in 1923, in an automobile accident in 1938, was a crushing blow to the artist, essentially deadening her creativity through the remaining forty years of her life. Before this tragedy, Weisser painted in south-central Texas, living in San Marcos, and during her marriage, in San Antonio. She moved to New Braunfels, Texas, afterward, living there until her own death on April 7, 1978, except for a few years in Seguin.
Weisser, in oil, watercolor and pastel, painted and drew rural landscapes, often featuring wildflowers and rivers in Hays, Guadalupe, Comal, and Bexar counties. She exhibited Texas Wild Flowers in the 1927 San Antonio Wild Flower Competitive Exhibition. It was purchased by Edgar B. Davis, sponsor of the event. It was also shown in the Texas Hall of State, and Century of Progress Exposition in Chicago, in 1933. Weisser's Bluebonnet received an honorable mention in the 1929 Wild Flower exhibition. Other specific works were Scene on the Guadalupe; Texas Pecan Trees; Post Oak Beauties; Texas Spring Scene; Bluebonnets and Cactus; and Guadalupe River. Weisser also exhibited at the Hays County Fair, San Marcos, with the San Antonio Art League; Federation of Women's Clubs, Lubbock; Fort Worth Museum of Art; and Southern States Art League.
Reference sources for the life and art of Leonie Weisser include: Who Was Who in American Art; Who's Who in American Art 1953-1962; Fielding; Petteys; O'Brien; US Census 1900, Guadalupe County, TX, ED 68, pg 3; US Census 1920, Hays County, TX, ED 65, pg 3; death certificate; D. Dedeke (niece), 1976, 1977; E. R. Dedeke (nephew), 1993.
Source:
Phil Kovinick and Marian Yoshiki Kovinick, "An Encyclopedia of Artists of the American West"
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