24 Facts About Leo Segedin

Leopold Segedin was an American artist and educator based in Chicago.

Leo Segedin is best known as an urban figurative painter, who portrayed humanist scenes of life in mid-20th century Chicago.

Leo Segedin's art has received awards from the Art Institute of Chicago, Terry Art Institute, Corcoran Gallery of Art, and American Jewish Arts Club.

Leo Segedin was an educator, most notably at Northeastern Illinois University, where he taught for over three decades.

In 1952, Leo Segedin began military service and taught drafting at the US Army Engineer School at Fort Belvoir, Virginia until 1954.

Leo Segedin exhibited widely, appearing in the AIC's "60th Annual National Exhibition", seven of its annual "Chicago and Vicinity" shows, and a United States Information Traveling Exhibition.

Leo Segedin was one of eleven influential Illinois artists recognized the Illinois State Museum's "Luminous Ground: Artists with Histories", and was in the Muskegon Museum of Art's "Moments of Grace: New Regional Painting".

Leo Segedin is included in Harvest of Freedom: A Survey of Jewish Artists in America by Louise Dunn Yochim.

Leo Segedin was married to his wife, Jan, for over 45 years, until her death in 2005.

Leo Segedin credited her as the "great support," that kept him on the "straight and narrow" path as an artist.

Leo Segedin pursued diverse cultural interests throughout his life: writing, lecturing, an ongoing monthly discussion group, and membership in a theater performance group spanning five decades.

Leo Segedin's painting Hey Kid inspired Michael Smith's song of the same title, as well as Segedin's inclusion as a character alongside legendary artists, in the painting-inspired folk revue, Hello Dali: From the Sublime to the Surreal.

Leo Segedin worked well into his 90s and was at work on a new painting at the time of his death.

Leo Segedin died on January 7,2025, at the age of 97.

Leo Segedin was a humanist representational painter, depicting life amid Chicago's storied elevated trains, brick storefronts, schoolyards, alleyways and cobblestone streets, often glimpsed from two-flat back porches and transit platforms.

Leo Segedin's work speaks to the human condition on subjects ranging from the Holocaust to war and imperialism to growing up and aging.

Leo Segedin's style ranged from realistic to expressionist, as in Sax Man, which featured rich, jewel-toned color, gestural brushwork, and an elongated figure with a convincing likeness.

Leo Segedin sometimes flirted with abstraction, particularly in cityscapes, that critics noted for their effectively flat, linear compositions and patterning.

Leo Segedin's "Hide and Seek" works considered both, using the game as an existential metaphor for one's public versus private self, and the desire to know the true nature of others.

Leo Segedin's style has continued to evolve in his seventh and eighth decades of work, with new elements, such as pencil and ink detailing or wallpaper patterns, and new themes, such as aging, which he explored wistfully in L Station, in celebratory fashion in the "Old Men Dancing" series, and more soberly in his extensive, ongoing series of self-portraits, such as Self-Portrait.

Leo Segedin was an educator for nearly forty years, beginning with an assistantship at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign during graduate school.

Leo Segedin served at NEIU until retiring as Art Professor Emeritus in 1987.

Leo Segedin taught at the Horwich JCC and the Evanston Art Center.

Leo Segedin has delivered lectures on subjects including Marshall McLuhan, bipolar disorder and art, and painting as information, among others.