Featuring
The Leonard McKay Collection
Celebrating Santa Clara Valley Artists

Open Saturdays and Sundays 12 noon -- 5:00 pm

March 13, 2005 to February 12, 2006

For over 55 years, local historian Leonard McKay has been assembling a distinctive body of work comprised solely of historic paintings by Santa Clara Valley artists. McKay began collecting as early as World War II when he served with the U.S. Army First Infantry Division in Germany after the Battle of the Bulge. While overseas he collected several European art works. However, by 1960 he began focusing exclusively on work created by Santa Clara Valley artists.

In 1956, McKay purchased the Smith-McKay Printing Company from his grandmother Bessie Smith, who founded the company with her husband Clifford, and her son Leonard Sr., in 1919. One of McKay’s clients was the de Saisset Museum. While working at the Museum with Father Pociask he met numerous local artists and began collecting their work. Sometimes he purchased it, and other times he traded printing jobs for their art. McKay began attending art exhibitions and auctions to build the collection. He says, “One of the things I like so much about these paintings is that they are a record for San José.” The resulting collection is wonderfully rich, diverse in styles and media, and is indeed a record of San José that the Museum is proud to share with the public. This is the first time the collection has been exhibited in its entirety.

Featured artists include A.D.M. Cooper, Andrew Putnam Hill, Louis O. Lussier, Marques E. Reitzel, and Frances Harvey Cutting. McKay amassed his distinctive collection over the past 60 years, and he is pleased to have found such an appropriate home for it.

As one of the founders of History Park it is fitting that The Leonard and David McKay Gallery be located here. In 1969, Leonard took an Oregon-California Trail tour led by this Museum’s founder Clyde Arbuckle. The two became fast friends, and Leonard edited and helped to publish Clyde Arbuckle’s History of San José. The book was printed on the presses at Smith-McKay Printing by Leonard’s son David, who bought the business from his father in 1983. David won numerous awards for excellence in printing, including the coveted Benjamin Franklin Award, which recognizes excellence in independent publishing. The gallery is named after Leonard and in memory of David McKay who died in 2004.