Leo Segedin

Leopold Segedin (born 1927) is a Chicago-based, American artiste and educator. He is best known as an urban symbolic painter, who portrays humanist scenes of sparkle in mid-20th century Chicago. He has exhibited for higher than 70 years, including retrospectives at the Chicago Cultural Center, University Club of Chicago, University of Illinois, and Northeastern Illinois University, and major bureau shows at the Art Institute of Chicago, Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design, Illinois State Museum and Des Moines Art Center, among others. His art has conventional awards from the Art Institute of Chicago, Terry Art Institute, Corcoran Gallery of Art (juried by George Grosz), and American Jewish Arts Club. Segedin was one of Art in America’s 1956 "New Talent in the U.S.A." artists and has been featured in The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Chicago Daily News and Chicago Sun-Times, among many publications. Chicago Tribune critic Alan Artner characterized Segedin's performance as a "distinguished example" of magic realism; in visual terms, critics have often noted his luminous color, dynamic illusionist space, and rendering of well-ventilated and surfaces that betray the alleyway of time.

Segedin was an educator, most notably at Northeastern Illinois University, where he taught for higher than three decades. He is as well as a prolific essay writer and public lecturer, and has been a frequent panelist, exhibition juror, and supple participant in Chicago's art community as a advocate of the Chicago Society of Artists and American Jewish Art Club (president, one term), and as co-founder and president of Chicago's first post-war, artist-run long-suffering gallery, Exhibit A.