Dudley, Leavitt
Leavitt Dudley (April 10, 1916 - September 19, 1987) was an American commercial artist. He won his first award as an artist at the Ventura County Fair at the age of 6. He graduated from high school in Ventura, and then studied at the Woodbury Business School and the Chouinart Art Institute in Los Angeles. He worked as a set illustrator for Paramount Studios in Hollywood for his first job, where his task was to draw the sets before they were built. He served in the Army during World War II in the chemical corps and contributed art to publications and other visual materials. After the war he worked on two Cecil B. DeMille movies before returning to Ventura to work as a freelance writer and illustrator in 1947. Dudley created numerous works over the ensuing decades, including books and textbooks. In 1960, the Los Angeles Times commissioned him to create a drawing for the front page of their weekly real estate section. Dudley also illustrated a textbook, Architectural Illustration, published by Prentice-Hall in 1977. It included hundreds of illustrations by Dudley. He was diagnosed with lymphoma in 1982, and spent his remaining years as a gentleman rancher and illustrator. He was married to his wife Ruth with whom he had 3 children.
Celebrating Spanish and Mexican ranchos in Ventura County.
This is a 1965 Leavitt Dudley pictorial map of Spanish and Mexican ranchos in Ventura County, California. The Spanish and Mexican governments granted these ranchos to individuals or groups of individuals as rewards. (more details)