Born October 11th, 1935
Died March 24th, 2026
Leslie MacWeeney Dobbs (90), artist, art educator and community activist with notable careers in Ireland and the United States, died at her home in Stoneham, Massachusetts.
She was born in Dublin in 1935 and contracted tuberculosis at the age of 10, suffering damage to her kidneys, lungs and spine. Bedridden for years, she was confined in a full-torso plaster-cast for months but found relief in learning to draw.
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When the cast was removed and replaced with a metal corset, her spine was curved, and doctors were sceptical she would walk again. She did, and in later years hiked in the mountains of New Hampshire in the US as well as in Co Waterford. She also learned to ski cross-country and took part in anti-war marches.
Her drawings gained her early admission, at 14, to the National College of Art and Design in Dublin, where she studied under Seán Keating and Maurice MacGonigal, and later in Paris at L’École des Beaux-Arts.
Back in Dublin, she began to make hand colour prints for the Yeats family’s Cuala Press and also illustrated books for the Dolmen Press, notably creating linocuts for Arland Ussher’s The Twenty Two Keys of the Tarot, creating a much-prized limited edition of the book.
She worked as Anne Yeats’s assistant, as secretary of the Annual Irish Exhibition of Living Art and, with Anne Yeats, Elizabeth Rivers, Patrick Hickey and Liam Miller, founded The Graphic Studio Dublin.
Meanwhile, her drawings and paintings were being exhibited in Ireland, France, Germany, the US, Switzerland and India, including at the Irish Exhibition of Living Art, at Leinster House, in Dublin’s Dawson and Clog galleries, and at the Ankrum Gallery in Los Angeles.
She represented Ireland in First and Second Paris Biennales, the First Indian Triennial, and the Internazionale di Bianco e Nero in Switzerland.
Today her work is displayed in museums, libraries and private collections around the world including, in Dublin, at Trinity College, the Arts Council, the Municipal Gallery, the Hugh Lane Gallery, the Burns Library in Boston College, and in California at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art. The National Library and National Gallery in Dublin are in the process of obtaining her work.
In 1987 she took part in the Irish Women Artist’s exhibition, where her Stations of the Cross tapestries, hanging in the church of Corpus Christi at Knockanure, Co Kerry, were described in the catalogue as “one of the most important works of religious art in the Sixties.”
Dot Art’s programme was described as a landmark achievement for racial integration in a cultural programme
She began her career as an art educator in Dublin, founding a Montessori-style kindergarten while also teaching in secondary schools. Her focus shifted on moving to Boston in 1973, where she enrolled in the graduate art education programme at Boston University’s School of Visual Arts. She also attended Rudolph Arnheim’s Seminar on Visual Thinking at Harvard University.
She was soon teaching undergraduate courses in art education there and at Massachusetts College of Art and Design (MassArt), where she was appointed assistant professor in art education.
In 1977 she married Paul Dobbs, and in 1987 they adopted an infant in Honduras, where she spent months with their new son, Adam, at a remote Mennonite colony in the mountains, waiting for the legal process to be completed. Back in Dorchester they homeschooled their son. In 1972 this led her to create The Children’s Studio” which included classes for children in drawing, painting and sculpture.
In 1998 Leslie and Paul Dobbs, with others, created the nonprofit Dorchester Community Center for the Visual Arts, more commonly known as “Dot Art”. Building self-esteem and community across racial and ethnic differences was core to Dot Art’s mission, with Leslie as its director and lead teacher.
When Dot Art achieved its goal of creating 100 Dorchester portraits for the millennium, Boston Public Library exhibited them inside the central concourse of its main branch in Copley Square. Dot Art’s programme was described as a landmark achievement for racial integration in a cultural programme.
She then introduced a project to involve teenagers and children, such as giant puppets that became attractions in Boston’s First Night and Dorchester Day parades. As well as working closely with Boston Public Library branches, Dot Art, under her leadership, collaborated with the New England Aquarium, Boston’s Strand Theater and the Actor’s Shakespeare Project.
In 2015 she founded a second nonprofit organisation called Living Art, which added a new dimension to the portraits project by recruiting first responders – police, firefighters, EMTs and veterans – to pose as subjects for the portraits.
Through Dot Art and later Living Art, Leslie championed the idea that the activity of making art can change people and their relationships with others.
Into her late 80s, she continued to seek spaces to teach art. Even as her health failed, two weeks before she died she was looking into grants for another series of classes.
In 2009 she received the Massachusetts Distinguished Arts Educator Award and in 2023 the City of Boston honoured her on the 25th anniversary of her founding Dot Art. In 2024 the Charitable Irish Society awarded her its annual Silver Key for Service to Immigrants.
Throughout the years she continued to spend a lot of time in Ireland, mainly during the summer months but also at Christmas. In 1989 she bought a small house in Kilkenny, which she renovated with great attention to historical accuracy and continued to visit until recent years.
Leslie is survived by her son, Adam Dobbs, her brother Alen MacWeeney, former husband Paul Dobbs, friend and caretaker Kathleen McAvoy, niece India MacWeeney, cousins Conchita Navarro, Trinidad Navarro, and Toni Delaney.
A funeral Mass for her will be celebrated at the Paulist Center, 5 Park Street, Boston, on April 25th.
