Here is your chance to view private collections of paintings by the late Montezuma resident, Leah Johnson. Leah Johnson was a self-taught painter from Montezuma who learned to paint to support her family after her husband passed away. She specialized in painting Western Kansas landscapes and the sod houses (or soddies) that dotted the area when she was a child. Leah created her own technique of mixing soils native to each homestead into her oil or acrylic paints to give each piece texture and a 3-dimensional appearance.

Her pieces gained popularity with people of this area, and with travelers passing through the area. She is known for painting canvases of homesteads, but each piece also contains her vivid interpretations of the Western Kansas sky. Johnson painted from memory, and considered herself a historian of sorts as she documented the places of her youth. She once said “As an artist, I feel more closely drawn to things of my childhood and earlier… In a sense, I’m cataloging history.”