The National Civic Art Society is proud to announce the appointment of Catesby Leigh, a critic who has written extensively about public art and architecture, as its 2018-2019 Research Fellow. Leigh is a co-founder of the NCAS and retired from the board in 2008 after serving as chair for six years. His research will focus on the monumental tradition in American civic art.
Leigh was born and raised in Washington, D.C. After graduating from Princeton, he spent most of the 1980s in South America as a foreign correspondent for the Cox Newspapers chain. Visiting many cities and towns in the region, he grew increasingly interested in traditional architectural environments, and was struck by their Modernist counterparts’ failure to achieve comparable levels of visual or physical amenity. After moving back to the United States, Leigh met the distinguished architectural historian Henry Hope Reed, who became a mentor.
Leigh's first architectural articles appeared in 1991. Since then his commentary has appeared in publications including the Wall Street Journal, Weekly Standard, National Review, First Things, City Journal, and the Claremont Review of Books.
Below please find a selection of his articles:
"A Genius in Draft Form," National Review
"Penn Station, Reborn?," City Journal
"Captured in Bronze," Claremont Review of Books