Leo Ramon Summers was born on June 13, 1925 in Los Angeles, California. His father, James Christopher Summers, was born in 1885 in Kentucky. His mother, Josephine Mary Page, was born in 1897 in Michigan. His parents married in 1918 and had two children, James Joseph Summers (b.1919), and Leo Ramon Summers (b.1925). The family lived at 117 East 28th Street in Los Angeles. The father was a yard clerk at the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad.
In 1930 the Summers family left Los Angeles and moved to Seattle, Washington, where the father had been hired as a yard clerk for the Great Northern Railroad Company. The family lived at 1401 West Dravus Street in Seattle. They rented the home for $20 a month. Leo Summers attended Blessed Sacrament Catholic School on Eighth Avenue and Northeast 53rd Street.
In 1938 Leo Summers began to attend Roosevelt High School, where he became interested in a career as a commercial artist.
In June of 1942 Leo Summers graduated from Roosevelt High School. His yearbook inscription stated, "Leo plans to join the Navy after graduation. He wants to be a commercial artist."
On January 19, 1943, during World War II, Leo Summers joined the Navy and was stationed in the South Pacific. His older brother joined the Air Force and served as a First Lieutenant with the 306th Bomb Squadron, 8th Air Force.
On February 3, 1946 Leo Summers was honorably discharged. After the war he returned to his family in Seattle, where he took advantage of the G.I. Bill to attend the Burnley School of Art He studied at the school for three years.
On July 2, 1948 Leo Summers married Catherine Butler. She was born in 1928 in Alaska, and lived with her family in Kirkland, WA. The bride was age twenty and the groom was age twenty-three.
In 1949 Leo Summers began to draw illustrations for pulp magazines published by Ziff-Davis, such as Amazing Stories, Fantastic Adventures, and Mammoth Western. He went on to draw hundreds of interior story illustrations for this publisher, William Ziff. At that time the publisher was located in Chicago.
In 1952 Leo Summers began to also paint covers for Ziff-Davis pulps Fantastic Adventures and Amazing Stories.
That same year Ziff-Davis left Chicago and moved their business to New York City. Leo Summers joined them in NYC, because they hired him as a full-time art director.
On June 21, 1952 the artist's older brother, James Joseph Summers, died at the age of thirty-two in Seattle.
On December 8, 1953 the artist's father, James Christopher Summers, died at the age of sixty-eight in Seattle.
While Leo Summers worked full-time at Ziff-Davis he also began to moonlight as free-lance illustrator for other publishing companies. He contributed free-lance illustrations to The Gent, The Dude, See Magazine, Harper's Magazine, Astounding and Analog, where he worked for over twenty years.
The "1958 Nude Photography Annual" from Art Photography Magazine included a full page watercolor illustration by Leo Summers.
In the 1960s he illustrated books, such as "The Old Vienna Cookbook" by Lillian Christensen from Gourmet Books (1960), "The Song Of Hiawatha" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow from Platt & Munk (1963), "There's No Place Like Nome" by Artis Palmer William Morrow and Company (1963), "Runaway To Glory" by Alice Christgau from Young Scott Books (1965), "A History Of The Arts" By Michael Martin from Bobbs Merrill (1966), "The Space Hut" by Ester Wier from Stackpole Books (1967), "Off To The Races" by Fred Phleger from Random House (1968), "Cat Tales" by Natalia Belting from Holt, Rinehart and Winston (1968), and "Wild Boy" by Thomas Fall from Scholastic Books (1968).
He also worked in comic books. In 1967 he drew "Bomba The Jungle Boy" for DC Comics, and in the 1970s he was credited for several features from Warren Publications and Seaboard Comics.
On December 16, 1982 the artist's mother, Josephine Mary (Page) Summers, died at the age of eighty-five in Seattle.
Leo Ramon Summers died in New York City at the age of fifty-nine on April 1, 1985.
© David Saunders 2019 |
