Lenore Thomas Straus

Lenore Thomas Straus (1 November 1909 – 16 January 1988) was an American sculptor and author.

Lenore Thomas Straus
Born	Lenore Thomas 1 November 1909 Chicago, Illinois
Died	East Blue Hill, Maine
Nationality	American
Education	Chicago Art Institute
Known for	Sculpture

Life and work

Lenore Thomas was born 1 November 1909 in Chicago, Illinois, the daughter of Andrew S. Thomas and Lucy Haagsma, and died at her home in Blue Hill, Maine, on 16 January 1988. Although she studied at the Chicago Art Institute, as a sculptor she was largely self-taught. Much of her early work involved public art created under various New Deal programs, including terra cotta murals for several post offices. She fashioned two major pieces for the Resettlement Administration's planned community in Greenbelt, Maryland—a large Mother and Child and several panels illustrating the Preamble to the United States Constitution. Along with other Public Works Administration artists Hugh Collins, Carmelo Arutu, and Joseph Goethe, she created playground sculpture for Langston Terrace, the first federally funded housing project in Washington, DC. In the early 1940s, when she was living in Accokeek, Maryland, she married Robert Ware Straus, who was to play an integral role in the preservation of the view across the Potomac River from George Washington's home at Mount Vernon. In 1968, she moved to Maine, where she was a student of zen teacher Walter Nowick at Moonspring Hermitage. in Surry, which later became the Morgan Bay zendo. She was an active member of the Morgan Bay zendo, and several of her sculptures remain on its grounds

In 1987, the University of Maine honored her with the Maryann Hartman Award, which recognizes distinguished women of Maine. Shortly after her death in 1988, the Lenore Thomas Straus Scholarship was established in her name at the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, where Straus had taught as an artist-in-residence in 1984 and 1986 and plunged into the medium of handmade paper.

Gallery

• 

  Greenbelt, Maryland bas relief "Promote the General Welfare"

• 2 -Greenbelt Community Center Preamble to the Constitution of the US by WPA Sculptress Leonore Thomas Strauss.JPG

  Greenbelt, Maryland bas relief "Provide for the Common Defense"

• 3-Greenbelt Community Center Preamble to the Constitution of the US by WPA Sculptress Leonore Thomas Strauss.JPG

  Greenbelt, Maryland bas relief "Insure Domestic Tranquility"

List of selected works

1937	Preamble to the United States Constitution	limestone	Greenbelt Community Center, Greenbelt Maryland
1939	Delivery of Mail to the Farm	glazed terra cotta	Post office, Fredonia, Kansas
1939	Mother and Child	stone	Town center, Greenbelt, Maryland
1939	Rural Life		Post office, Covington, Virginia
1940	Frog	concrete	Langston Terrace playground, Washington, DC
1941	Industries and Agriculture of Leetonia	terra cotta relief	Post office, Leetonia, Illinois
1943	Springtime		Post office, Webster Springs, West Virginia
1967	The Fisherman's Wife		Vestvågøy, Lofoten, Norway
	Two Headed Sculpture		Blue Hill Public Library, Blue Hill, Maine
	Seamstress		Roosevelt Public School, Roosevelt, New Jersey
	Blue Rhinoceros		Alice Ferguson Foundation, Accokeek, Maryland
	Alice		Alice Ferguson Foundation, Accokeek, Maryland
	Henry		Alice Ferguson Foundation, Accokeek, Maryland

Bibliography

• The Tender Stone (1964)
• Stone Dust: The Autobiography of a Stone Carving (1969)