Prasse, Leona E. (1897-1984)
Dates
- Existence: 1897 - 1984
Biography
Leona E. Prasse (1897-1984) worked in the Department of Prints and Drawings from 1925-1967, first as Assistant Curator (1925-30) and then as Associate Curator (1931-66). She was a graduate of Flora Stone Mather College, a division of Western Reserve University, with a B.S. in 1919 and B.A. in 1920. Prasse is credited with guiding the Museum in acquiring the finest possible prints and drawings. She was also one of the most important donors to the department, giving nearly five hundred works from her own collection between 1930 and 1981. The collection includes prints by old masters, engravings by William Blake, prints by American artists Maurice Prendergast and John Sloan, and 20th-century European works, including a group by Wassily Kandinsky. She was particularly fond of 19th-century French artists, reflected in prints by Delacroix, Gericault, Daumier, Renoir, and Toulouse-Lautrec. She also played a significant role with The Print Club of Cleveland, both in her service to the club and in her guidance of its members.
With a Guggenheim Fellowship award in 1956, Prasse travelled to museums and private collections in the U.S. and Europe for a definitive catalogue of Lyonel Feininger’s graphic work. She had worked with Feininger in close collaboration before his death in 1956. Lyonel Feininger, A Definitive Catalogue of His Graphic Work was published by the Museum to critical acclaim in 1972. To coincide with the publication of the catalogue and the one hundredth anniversary of Feininger’s birth, Prasse organized a retrospective exhibition of one hundred prints by Feininger.
Among the many other exhibitions which she organized was the first ever devoted to the drawings of Charles Burchfield with a catalogue published in 1953. Her other publications comprise articles in The Cleveland Museum of Art Bulletin, spanning 1926 to 1959. Upon Prasse’s death in 1984, the Museum mounted an exhibition, “Leona E. Prasse, Connoisseur and Curator,” a selection of the prints and drawings she gifted to the Museum.
-Biography by Anne Cuyler Salsich, 2024
Occupations
Places
- Ohio--Cleveland (Place of Death)
Topics
Found in 6 Collections and/or Records:
Leona E. Prasse: Connoisseur and Curator
This is an artificially created collection of exhibitions organized and/or held at the Cleveland Museum of Art from 1916-1992. This collection combines records from all offices involved in the planning and execution of exhibitions. Offices are identified on file names or separation sheets within files. Exhibition files from 1992 forward are retained with the records of the offices of origin which are primarily unprocessed.
Miss Prasse, March 11, 1974
This collection consists of photographic negatives, mostly 35mm, of museum staff and activities taken by Martin Linsey, who was a member of the museum education department. The images document both the museum campus and other Cleveland venues. The negatives date from 1964-1980. The archives has a second collection of Martin Linsey photographs of Cleveland monuments, cataloged separately.
Prasse, Leona
Prasse, Leona E., 1950-1958
Prasse, Leona E., 1959-1983
WTAM: Lyonel Feininger by Miss Prasse, 04-November-1951
This small collection on microfilm consists of transcripts of radio talks presented by museum staff on local radio stations on various topics including the May Show, the Museum's twentieth anniversary, exhibitions, collections, and programs. Regretfully, there are no audio files to accompany the transcripts.