Veino (Vienna) Panttaja Leeman (1911 – 2002)

Abstraction (Untitled), c. 1930s, mixed media on board, signed lower right, 8 ¼ x 7 inches (image), 15 x 10 inches (board), Literature: Achieving Recognition, American Fine Art Magazine, March/April, 2025, p. 76 (illustrated)

$1500

Veino (Vienna) Panttaja was born on April 19, 1911, in Berkeley, California, the 10th and youngest child of Isaac Wilhelm Panttaja and Hannah Aleksandra Wilson, both natives of Finland. Panttaja attended Reedley High School where she worked as an artist on the yearbook.  Panttaja graduated in 1929 and enrolled at the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland. In 1940, she was 29 years old and lived in Brooklyn, California, with her mother and brother. In 1941 Panttaja married David Eugene Leeman, a singer in a Finnish American men's chorus that toured Finland in 1956. She traveled with the chorus. The couple lived in Southern California and in 1985 moved to Napa Valley. Her obituary records that she was a gifted artist and weaver and sang in many choirs over the years.