Leo Segedin

Leopold Segedin (born 1927) is a Chicago-based, American player and educator. He is best known as an urban symbolic painter, who portrays humanist scenes of activity 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 organization 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 established 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 statute as a "distinguished example" of illusion realism; in visual terms, critics have often noted his radiant color, dynamic illusionist space, and rendering of well-ventilated and surfaces that betray the path of time.

Segedin was an educator, most notably at Northeastern Illinois University, where he taught for beyond three decades. He is with a prolific essay writer and public lecturer, and has been a frequent panelist, exhibition juror, and alert participant in Chicago's art community as a devotee 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 compliant gallery, Exhibit A.