Ventana Art Gallery - paintings and sculptures by international artists

Leonard Wren presents a sunny face to the world, with his silvery gray hair, purple sweat shirt and green jeans. Even the bandage on his finger is fluorescent. To look at him now, it's hard to believe that as a young man Wren was, as he describes himself, "the original street person." Born in 1940, he grew up near Coffeyville, KS, in what he calls a narrow world, populated with less than 200 people. "I was 18 years old before I knew there were such things as artists."

Wren left a difficult home life at 18 and lived on his own, working at a greenhouse, where he slept on the floor. He also worked as an itinerant car pin-striper. "I was a free spirit, working in places like drive-ins. People came from miles around to have me pin stripe their cars," he says.

Wren married Roberta in1962 and moved to Tulsa in 1964, where he started a commercial design business. He eventually closed the shop in 1976 to paint full time - "too many deadlines and too many compromises."

A chance visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1975 introduced him to impressionism. "From the very first time I saw Claude Monet's paintings I was overwhelmed and I began to see in a totally new way."


	Leonard Wren presents a sunny face to the world, with his silvery gray hair, purple sweat shirt and green jeans. Even the bandage on his finger is fluorescent. To look at him now, it's hard to believe that as a young man Wren was, as he describes himself, "the original street person." Born in 1940, he grew up near Coffeyville, KS, in what he calls a narrow world, populated with less than 200 people. "I was 18 years old before I knew there were such things as artists." Wren left a difficult home life at 18 and lived on his own, working at a greenhouse, where he slept on the floor. He also worked as an itinerant car pin-striper. "I was a free spirit, working in places like drive-ins. People came from miles around to have me pin stripe their cars," he says. Wren married Roberta in1962 and moved to Tulsa in 1964, where he started a commercial design business. He eventually closed the shop in 1976 to paint full time - "too many deadlines and too many compromises." A chance visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1975 introduced him to impressionism. "From the very first time I saw Claude Monet's paintings I was overwhelmed and I began to see in a totally new way."
	Upon his return home, Wren set out to find a teacher to help him develop skills in painting light and color. He settled on Richard and Edith Goetz, who taught in Oklahoma City, OK. For a year, Wren made a weekly round-trip drive of 500 miles to take classes Monday through Wednesday. Since he couldn't afford an apartment or motel room, he slept on the studio floor in a sleeping bag. "Honest ignorance," he says, gave him the confidence to embark on a painting career at the age of 36, now with a daughter to support. "learning about art was more complex than I had ever imagined. The more I learned, the more I realized I still had to learn."
	During the same period, Wren was influenced by painter Richard Schmid, whose work hung in Talisman Gallery, Bartlesville, OK. "He's not a classic impressionist, but when I saw his work, I said "Wow!" Once he became acquainted with impressionism, Wren moved quickly, selling his first painting to another student and securing his first one-man exhibition at Talisman Gallery. Today Leonard Wren's paintings and limited editions are represented in some of the finest galleries. The collectors demand for Leonard Wren's images continues to outpace supply. Ventana Gallery is proud to represent the beautiful images of this very talented artist.

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