It's Found!!! W. R. Leigh's painting, The Great Railroad Strike, subject of an intensive search by art experts and enthusiasts around the nation, has been located. It's in good health and carefully preserved.

Here's the story:

When the effort began to restore the railroad roundhouse in Martinsburg, West Virginia it was recalled that the historic rail strike of the late 1800s actually had its first flare-up in Martinsburg. Federal troops were summoned to quash it. Later, the unrest spread around the nation. Similarly, it was recalled that Leigh had executed a painting, titled The Great Railroad Strike which was reproduced on Page 44 of the June DuBois biography of Leigh, published in 1977. Those facts provided gestation for an idea that restoration of the roundhouse might logically include recognition of West Virginia's most famous artist- a bit of heritage that somehow has gone unrecognized.

At the time the book was published, credit for permission to use the painting was given to the Berry-Hill Galleries. Earlier, we reported in The Leigh Side that present-day employees at this New York City gallery couldn't come up with any records showing disposition of the painting. The Foundation then launched a search, trying to track it down.

Initially, it was thought the painting was done to illustrate an article in Scribner's, but some detailed research by one of our email correspondents, Jim Vadeboncoeur, Jr., didn't turn up such an article. Leigh also worked for Colliers and other publishers, so perhaps it appeared in some other news magazine.

We sent letters and emails to contacts around the nation. John Overington took a picture for the appeal featured on our web site. We're thankful for the many replies from experts at museums and galleries as well as for letters from many individuals. But, still, none had a handle on the painting's location. That is, until Lyn Dunham settled in for a lengthy stint at her computer, prying open files around the Internet. Finally, the Smithsonian Institution's Research Information System yielded the fruitful clue.

In 1976, the Heinz Galleries Museum of Art at Carnegie Institute published an exhibition catalogue listing Leigh's painting, executed in 1895, under the title The Attempt to Fire the Pennsylvania Rail Road Roundhouse in Pittsburgh, at Daybreak on 7/22/1877. The owner was given as the H. K. Porter Company in Pittsburgh. No one we contacted in Pittsburgh knew of the company or how to reach its successor. It appeared from the research that the painting had been part of an exhibition in '76. So, with only scant hope someone would remember the exhibit, we called the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh. Quickly, we learned from Monika Tomko, Registrar, that the museum still had the painting! It was a gift in 1976 from Thomas Mellon Evans.

Whew! What a research job!