Detail from The Canal, Amsterdam, 1889, James McNeill Whistler, The Hunterian, University of Glasgow

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Leon Dabo

Nationality: American
Date of birth: 1868.07.09
Place of birth: Detroit, MI
Date of death: 1960
Category: painter

Identity:

Leon Dabo was a painter, as was his father and brother. He perhaps took his name from a town in the Vosges with a famous chateau-fort.

Life:

Dabo claimed that his father knew Whistler in Saverne in 1858, and according to Gimpel, Dabo maintained that 'all of us used to go to Princess Mathilde's, and in lounge suits'. Dabo apparently declared of Whistler's art, 'There is such repose in his works, by which I don't mean immobility. A work that doesn't budge isn't art'.

Dabo imitated and possibly even faked Whistler's work, possibly in collaboration with the dealer George Hellmann.

Dabo exhibited between 1908-10 at the Goupil Gallery in London and at the London Salon.

Bibliography:

Bachelard, Pierre, Dabo: comte d'Alsace et commune de Lorraine, Metz, 1947; Dillenschneider, Joseph, Dabo, joyau des Basses-Vosges, Sarrebourg, 1972; Johnson, J., and A. Greutzner, The Dictionary of British Artists 1880-1940, Woodbridge, 1980; Gimpel, René, Diary of an Art Dealer, London, 1986; Merrill, Linda (ed.), American Attitude: Whistler and his followers, exhibition catalogue, High Museum, Atlanta and Detroit Institute of Art, 2004.