American Processional: History on Canvas; Reprinted from the National Geographic Magazine of February, 1951

Pagination 173-180 pages plus approximately 30 pages of color illustration. Cover has slight wear and soiling. There are 38 Illustrations, including thirty-three paintings. John Leeper was born in 1921 in Dennison, Texas; BS in journalism from Southern Methodist University and an MA in art history from Harvard University; Blanche Magurn Leeper was born in 1911 in Boston, Massachusetts; BA in philosophy and MA in Fine Arts from Radcliffe College; she was assistant curator of Oriental Art at the William Hayes Fogg Art Museum at Harvard; assistant to the director, Pasadena Art Museum, 1950-53; married John Leeper in 1953; from 1954-90 John served as the director of the Marion Koogler McNay Art Museum in San Antonio, Texas, and Blanche became a librarian there in 1954. On November 22, 1800, President John Adams welcomed to Washington, D. C., the Houses of Congress assembled for the first time in the new United States Capitol. One hundred and fifty years later the Nation observed the Capitol City's anniversary. The National Capital Sesquicentennial Commission, which planned for celebration, Commissioned The Corcoran Gallery of Art, a privately endowed museum in Washington, to borrow and exhibit a series of historical paintings, drawings, and prints illustrations the country's growth. This collection, entitled "American Processional," was designed to encompass the years between 1492 and 1900, and to include political, economic, cultural, and social developments. Every picture had to show an important and unique phase of the American Story. In truth, the American story is too varied, too profound, too tragic, too high-spirited ever to be adequately reported in an art survey. American Processional could not tell everything, but it added new light to our national history.…