Who was Laurel Blair?

Laurel G. Blair Sculpted in wax by Eric Griffiths, 1973
Laurel G. Blair Sculpted in wax by Eric Griffiths, 1973
Portrait of Laurel Blair which hangs in the Blair Museum. Painted by Peggy Grant, Toledo artist and Blair Museum Advisory Board Member.
Portrait of Laurel Blair which hangs in the Blair Museum. Painted by Peggy Grant, Toledo artist and Blair Museum Advisory Board Member.

Laurel Gotshall Blair, founder of the Blair Museum of Lithophanes, was a native Toledoan. His father, Roy Blair, opened the Blair Realty and Investment Company in 1908, and Laurel joined the company at birth in 1909.

Blair Realty was a major developer in our growing city in the 1920's, creating such communities as the upscale Heatherdowns community including the Heatherdowns Country Club. "...and with that, I fell in love."

Laurel attended Scott High School and the University of Michigan. Like his father before him, he served as president of the Toledo Board of Realtors.

A lifelong lover of beauty, Laurel was visiting a fellow musical box collector in Berlin Heights, Ohio, when he saw for the first time in the windows delicate porcelain pictures illuminated by the sun shining through them lithophanes. "And with that," he frequently said, "I fell in love."

Over time, he amassed such a large collection that he established a private museum in his home to display them. He also made an in depth study of their history, origin and use and became the world's foremost authority on the subject.