After decades of devotion to lunchboxes, teacher meetings and driving lessons, artist Leonor Anthony now focuses on her spirituality, her education and her art.
Exhibited worldwide today, her pieces reflect her life experience, passion, and personal growth, demonstrating that art does indeed imitate life.
Anthony was born in Cuba. Her family relocated to Miami while she was still a young child.
Growing up, she was far more interested in climbing trees, kicking soccer balls and drawing on everything she could get her hands on as long as she had a pencil to draw.
Her family encouraged her to participate in Miss Latin USA beauty pageant at the age of 17. She won this, her first and only beauty pageant.
Yet this accomplishment did have an effect. It was a life changing experience. She spent a year touring many Latin American countries and met people from a variety of cultures. This gave birth to an already internal passion — to express her vision, her philanthropic love for humanity through her art. Her art is totally an expression of her life — that she has touched and that has touched her.
Since then, Anthony has never let boundaries of culture, family or those set by herself affect her dreams and ambitions.
Her perseverance and motivation surpassed the everyday schedule of raising three children. She successfully persevered in her career as an actor/model in 2004. She performed in movies like Wild Things (1998), Amos and Andrew (1993) and Confetti (1996) among others.
When her youngest children (twin girls) started to drive, she found more time for her artwork.
Anthony threw herself into developing as an artist, studying technique, painting prolifically, defining her own style and gaining more education.
She earned two bachelor’s degrees in both Psychology and Art History, thereafter earning a master’s degree in Religious Studies — all from Florida International University with honors.
Throughout all this, she painted, donating pieces to local charities and businesses. She applied to many juried competitions and pursued every opportunity to expand her audience.
In September 2013 she exhibited at the Beijing Art Expo in Beijing, China. There the judges for the NLAPW (National League of American Pen Women selected two of her paintings, featured in the NLAPW’s website and group’s magazine.
As her work becomes increasingly respected, she has turned toward helping others who share her background, inspiration and love for art. She founded the Young Urban Cuban Artists (YUCA) in order to “show the world that Cuban artists are doing outside Cuba.”
Dedicated wholeheartedly to promoting education, she co-founded the Himalayan Community Project (HCP), which benefits children and families in desperately poor Nepal. HCP helps fund classrooms, school buildings and maintenance, as well as sponsoring children’s school enrollment, empowering them as individuals.
Working with the Honors College from FIU, she developed a student study abroad trip to Nepal where they will work first hand with HCP.
Anthony works extensively with charitable organizations including Big Brothers Big Sisters, United Way, Miracle Workers, Loving Soles, and many others.
She was the recipient of the Tiffany’s 2012 Humanitarian Award presented during the Miami Beach International Fashion Week, and has earned many more recognitions.
