Leny Nowag Wacht, who operated the Delta School of Art in Greenwood for more than four decades, was a fearless, unpredictable, Germany-born artist and bon vivant who lived life with standards all her own.
She’d issue wee shots of wine to her elementary-age art students. She refused to wait on tables at Galatoires, insisting to hostesses that she and her guests be seated immediately. In the 1950s, on a tour of The Vatican, she giggled about using Pope Pius XII’s personal restroom while her guide looked on in horror. And she once suffered a sprained ankle while dancing atop a table n in her 80s.
“She was a person who shaped her world rather than be shaped by it,” her daughter, Dr. Anita Batman, said Wednesday afternoon. “She was very inspiring.”
Wacht, who touched countless lives not only through her school but by her passionate approach to life, died Tuesday at the age of 96. A funeral service will be held at 11 a.m. Saturday at the Episcopal Church of the Nativity.
Wacht was born in Mannheim Baden, Germany, in 1912. Her family was well-do-to, and all signs pointed to her living out a conservative existence in her home country. But at the age of 17, while she was working as a kindergarten teacher, something inside of her sparked.
“She was afraid that life would pass her by,” Batman said. “To her, life was culture. Money wasn’t enough. She wanted music, culture, philosophy. That was living.”
So at 17, with only an uncle’s home address in Chicago in her hand and no one accompanying her, Wacht boarded a boat bound for America in 1930.
After graduating from the Chicago Art Institute and marrying Peter Wacht, a fellow native of Germany, she moved to Greenwood in 1949. In the early 1950s, she opened the Delta School of Art Studio, conducting classes in her home on West Adams Avenue.
“She wanted children to know another kind of self-worth,” Batman said. “She wanted them to know there was more to a person’s worth than beauty and strength.”
That meant more than teaching youngsters how to draw. Discussions on history and culture were the norm around the Wacht household. “She really wanted to enrich lives,” Batman said. “She felt like a brain must be fed.”
One of her early students was Allan Hammons, who today owns Hammons and Associates in Greenwood. Hammons remembers his former teacher fondly.
“She had a great way of pushing kids to succeed,” he said. “She was very encouraging. She wouldn’t accept halfway; she wanted your best.”
Hammons credits Wacht as one of the people who led him to become a graphic designer. But Batman said students who didn’t go on to make art the focus in their lives were still changed by attending the Delta School of Art.
“If nothing else, they see life differently,” Batman said. “They see themselves differently because of being exposed to her.”
In her own art, Wacht fluctuated from one style to another. “She was like a schizophrenic with a thousand demons inside of her,” Batman said.
She could churn out a straight-forward, warming portrait of her husband savoring a successful hunt, but she also was capable of more abstract, disturbing pieces.
Wacht retired from teaching in 1998, at the age of 86. As she grew older, though, she remained a rascal. Guests served tea in her home might unknowingly take a shot of apricot brandy. When a local judge tried to take her driver’s license away, Wacht, then in her 80s, informed the judge, in open court, “Young man, I decide when I don’t drive.” She voluntarily put her keys down when she turned 90.
Just recently, Batman said, Wacht took to telling people she was older than 100. When questioned by Batman as to why she would do such a thing, Wacht replied, “I’ve always lied about my age. Why would I stop now?”
Predictably, Wacht left many neighbors with raised eyebrows.
“Greenwood definitely considered her an eccentric,” Batman said. “But thankfully, Greenwood values its eccentrics. And I think she gave this town a huge boost of culture and appreciation of joy.”
Wacht’s granddaughter, Mimi Batman, said she hopes people remember Wacht’s brave spirit and the individualism she hoped to instill in the people around her.
“‘Courageous’ is the best word I can think of to describe her,” she said.
