(1886-1972)
Harold LeRoy Olmsted was a Buffalo-based artist, painter, professional landscape designer and architect, consultant, lecturer, teacher, and etcher especially known for his designs and landscape paintings. He attended Harvard University where he studied liberal arts, fine arts, and architecture under Dr. Denman W. Ross and Charles Herbert Moore, receiving his bachelor of fine arts degree in 1908. Shortly after graduating he worked briefly as an architect for Green & Wicks, the firm who originally designed the Albright Art Gallery. He also worked as a landscape architect for the firm Townsend and Fleming for about five years, practicing architectural and landscape design and garden design.
Olmsted maintained his studio and residence in Buffalo, and after 1942, resided in Springville, New York. Around 1919, he instituted the first art class, Art I: Appreciation and History, at the University of Buffalo, and taught night classes for many years at the Griffith Institute in Springville. His consulting work for several landscape and architectural firms included Bley & Lyman, North & Shelgren, Fred Backus and Arnold & Stern. He designed the How House (built 1924), a Tudor-Revival style home in Buffalo, which is currently on the National Register of Historic Places.
In 1966, he was named Man of the Year by the Harvard Club of Buffalo and received the Red Jacket Medal Award from the Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society in 1971. Featured exhibits included several solo, two-man, and group shows at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery and the Burchfield Penney Art Center, with a few of his works currently in its permanent collection. Other exhibits included solo shows at the Central Park Gallery, Dana Tillou Fine Arts, a group show at the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C.
Olmstead was a member of several organizations including the Buffalo Print Club, Buffalo Society of Artists (1970-72), the Guild of Allied Arts (life member), the Art Institute of Buffalo (1949), and was one of the founding members of the Studio Club, now the Studio Arena Theatre, in Buffalo. He, along with wife Evelyn Olmsted, were charter members of the Patteran Society of Buffalo. Olmstead died on March 19, 1972 at his home in Springville.