Obituary for Leon Emidio Travanti
Loving Leon - Art and Heart.
If ever a man wore his heart on his sleeve, it is Leon Emidio Travanti.
Born in Kenosha, Leon grew up in a big Italian family, working in his uncle’s grocery store from a young age.
If his name sounds familiar, it’s because you watched “Hill Street Blues.” Leon’s cousin, actor Daniel J. Travante, was one of the show’s stars (and adopted a different spelling of the family name).
Leon’s parents separated when he was young, and his mother later passed away. His extended family raised him, and Leon considered his cousin Camilla his second mother.
Camilla studied art; Leon watched and learned. She explained what she was doing, and he followed her example. He once said he began drawing at age 5. And he didn’t stop.
Despite a childhood injury from a window pane that seriously damaged his hand, Leon studied art.
Boy, did he.
He received his bachelor’s degree in art from the Layton School of Art in Milwaukee. On a scholarship to the prestigious Cranbrook Academy of Fine Arts in Bloomfield Hills, Mich., he received his masters’ in fine arts in 1960.
Leon enjoyed a long and distinguished career as a fine artist as well as a graphic designer. His graphic designs and illustrations received recognition in numerous competitive exhibitions regionally and nationally.
Leon’s work appeared in a who’s who of publications, galleries and institutions: International Wildlife magazine, the New York Times Week in Review, the Metropolitan Opera, McMillan Publishers for a children’s dictionary illustration and the Manhattan Children’s Museum as a graphic design consultant.
In the 1970s, he was commissioned to travel around the world to make drawings of people, towns, farms and businesses in such places as Australia, Malaysia and northern Europe.
His work was shown at the Chicago Art Institute, the Carnegie Melon Institute, the National Academy of Design in New York, the Milwaukee Art Museum, The Wustum Museum in Racine, the Posner Gallery in Milwaukee, and more.
Leon was a guest professor at the Parsons School of Design and the Pratt Institute’s New York campus. He served as art director for two Milwaukee magazines – the Wisconsin Architect, and Let’s See magazine, which later became Milwaukee Magazine.
He designed half a dozen posters for the Great Circus Parade in Milwaukee.
Leon taught lettering, typography and design for decades at the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee, retiring as a professor of the Art and Design Program at UWM’s Peck School of the Arts.
In the early 1980s, he met at woman who turned out to be his soulmate. His passion and love for art were surpassed only by his love for Carolyn White.
They married, fittingly, at a gallery where an exhibit on weddings was on display. Together they lived the next nearly 40 years in a grand 1890 mansion on N. Prospect Avenue, the scene of storied Christmas parties where a sumptuous buffet featured beef tenderloin and Carolyn’s Thai peanut dip.
An 18-foot Christmas tree towered in the foyer and reached past the winding carved staircase to the second floor. Most ornaments were made by artist friends and ran the gamut from the sublime to the ridiculous. Guests were expected to take an ornament from the box they had been stored in and place one or more on the tree. In the parlor a smaller tree was not the center of attraction; the bar was. A third tree sat on a table in the library, decorated with blown glass ornaments. The invitation featured Leon’s art – a whimsical, heartfelt image of their home. Every year, Leon said the party would be smaller next year. And every year, it never was.
True soulmates, Leon and Carolyn spent joyful years pursuing a shared passion: Travel. Their adventures took them to India, Africa, China, Thailand, Cambodia and Europe.
In retirement, Leon maintained an active studio for drawing and painting in the coach house of the home he shared with Carolyn. In 2016, his work was exhibited by the Museum of Wisconsin Art. His drawings of small Wisconsin towns were shown by the Cedarburg Museum of Art in 2018.
Art and heart. Loving Leon, the man with his heart on his sleeve, is reunited with the love of his life. His heart is happy.
Those he leaves behind are left with lessons of love. Feel the love, share the love, say “I love you.”
Leon lives where he always has, and always will - in our hearts.
Leon is survived by sons Scott (Arlene) and Patrick (Cherie); grandchildren Linda (Holly), Michelle (Andy) and Ryuu; great grandchild Nilo, and cousins David (Alice), Mark (Cheryl), Mike (Sandy) and Eddy (Kate).
Memorials to the Milwaukee Art Museum (mam.org) or Villa Terrace Decorative Arts Museum (villaterrace.org) are suggested.
A celebration of Leon’s remarkable life will be held at 1 p.m. Sunday, April 2, 2023, at Saint John’s on the Lake, 1840 N. Prospect Ave.
If ever a man wore his heart on his sleeve, it is Leon Emidio Travanti.
Born in Kenosha, Leon grew up in a big Italian family, working in his uncle’s grocery store from a young age.
If his name sounds familiar, it’s because you watched “Hill Street Blues.” Leon’s cousin, actor Daniel J. Travante, was one of the show’s stars (and adopted a different spelling of the family name).
Leon’s parents separated when he was young, and his mother later passed away. His extended family raised him, and Leon considered his cousin Camilla his second mother.
Camilla studied art; Leon watched and learned. She explained what she was doing, and he followed her example. He once said he began drawing at age 5. And he didn’t stop.
Despite a childhood injury from a window pane that seriously damaged his hand, Leon studied art.
Boy, did he.
He received his bachelor’s degree in art from the Layton School of Art in Milwaukee. On a scholarship to the prestigious Cranbrook Academy of Fine Arts in Bloomfield Hills, Mich., he received his masters’ in fine arts in 1960.
Leon enjoyed a long and distinguished career as a fine artist as well as a graphic designer. His graphic designs and illustrations received recognition in numerous competitive exhibitions regionally and nationally.
Leon’s work appeared in a who’s who of publications, galleries and institutions: International Wildlife magazine, the New York Times Week in Review, the Metropolitan Opera, McMillan Publishers for a children’s dictionary illustration and the Manhattan Children’s Museum as a graphic design consultant.
In the 1970s, he was commissioned to travel around the world to make drawings of people, towns, farms and businesses in such places as Australia, Malaysia and northern Europe.
His work was shown at the Chicago Art Institute, the Carnegie Melon Institute, the National Academy of Design in New York, the Milwaukee Art Museum, The Wustum Museum in Racine, the Posner Gallery in Milwaukee, and more.
Leon was a guest professor at the Parsons School of Design and the Pratt Institute’s New York campus. He served as art director for two Milwaukee magazines – the Wisconsin Architect, and Let’s See magazine, which later became Milwaukee Magazine.
He designed half a dozen posters for the Great Circus Parade in Milwaukee.
Leon taught lettering, typography and design for decades at the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee, retiring as a professor of the Art and Design Program at UWM’s Peck School of the Arts.
In the early 1980s, he met at woman who turned out to be his soulmate. His passion and love for art were surpassed only by his love for Carolyn White.
They married, fittingly, at a gallery where an exhibit on weddings was on display. Together they lived the next nearly 40 years in a grand 1890 mansion on N. Prospect Avenue, the scene of storied Christmas parties where a sumptuous buffet featured beef tenderloin and Carolyn’s Thai peanut dip.
An 18-foot Christmas tree towered in the foyer and reached past the winding carved staircase to the second floor. Most ornaments were made by artist friends and ran the gamut from the sublime to the ridiculous. Guests were expected to take an ornament from the box they had been stored in and place one or more on the tree. In the parlor a smaller tree was not the center of attraction; the bar was. A third tree sat on a table in the library, decorated with blown glass ornaments. The invitation featured Leon’s art – a whimsical, heartfelt image of their home. Every year, Leon said the party would be smaller next year. And every year, it never was.
True soulmates, Leon and Carolyn spent joyful years pursuing a shared passion: Travel. Their adventures took them to India, Africa, China, Thailand, Cambodia and Europe.
In retirement, Leon maintained an active studio for drawing and painting in the coach house of the home he shared with Carolyn. In 2016, his work was exhibited by the Museum of Wisconsin Art. His drawings of small Wisconsin towns were shown by the Cedarburg Museum of Art in 2018.
Art and heart. Loving Leon, the man with his heart on his sleeve, is reunited with the love of his life. His heart is happy.
Those he leaves behind are left with lessons of love. Feel the love, share the love, say “I love you.”
Leon lives where he always has, and always will - in our hearts.
Leon is survived by sons Scott (Arlene) and Patrick (Cherie); grandchildren Linda (Holly), Michelle (Andy) and Ryuu; great grandchild Nilo, and cousins David (Alice), Mark (Cheryl), Mike (Sandy) and Eddy (Kate).
Memorials to the Milwaukee Art Museum (mam.org) or Villa Terrace Decorative Arts Museum (villaterrace.org) are suggested.
A celebration of Leon’s remarkable life will be held at 1 p.m. Sunday, April 2, 2023, at Saint John’s on the Lake, 1840 N. Prospect Ave.