Leon Dabo (July 9, 1864[N 1] – November 7, 1960) was an American tonalist landscape artist best known for his paintings of New York State, particularly the Hudson Valley.

[9] During his peak, he was considered a master of his art, earning praise from John Spargo, Bliss Carman, Benjamin De Casseres, Edwin Markham, and Anatole Le Braz.

[8] His father Ignace Scott Dabo was a professor of aesthetics and a classical scholar, who moved the family to Detroit, Michigan in 1870 to escape the Franco-Prussian War.

[15] Dabo also studied briefly at the Academy of Fine Arts Munich, but the nascent form of German Expressionism did not appeal to him and he moved on to Italy, where he stayed for three years.

Finally, he spent some time in London around 1886, where he made the acquaintance of James Abbott McNeill Whistler, who also apparently was a fellow student of Marc-Charles-Gabriel Gleyre with Dabo's father.

[16] While in London, Dabo met Mary Jane "Jennie" Ford, they married in 1889 and the couple had two children: Madeleine Helen (b.

[26] A charter member of the Association of American Painters and Sculptors,[27] Dabo was a principal organizer of the International Exhibition of Modern Art in 1913, better known as the Armory Show.

He ended up serving as an officer in the French and British Armies successively and exposed a number of German spies, using his ear for dialect and accent.

[29] He was commissioned as a captain in the United States Army and served as an interpreter for the American Expeditionary Force[30] as well as an aide-de-camp to Major General Mark L. Hersey of the 4th Infantry Division.

He began to feel that American men had become too materialistic, but women, he felt, were of a more spiritual nature, and could "save" art from indifference.

They were well received, with The New York Times saying the works were "a distinct contribution to be associated with the flower harmonies of Odilon Redon and of Fantin-Latour.

With war approaching, Dabo helped artists such as Walter Sickert and Fernand Léger transport their works out of the country to avoid their being confiscated.