Artist Thea Osato’s window dressings were as iconic as the Baltimore storefronts they decorated

There was a time you couldn’t walk around Mount Vernon without seeing a Thea Osato original in the window of an iconic Baltimore storefront.

The glass at Louie’s Bookstore Café almost always had some elaborate collection of sketches, cartoon characters, dressed-up mannequins and book props that Osato positioned carefully. At Nyborgs’, the art supply store across the street, she’d use glittery paper to re-create paintbrushes and palettes.

She painted records and surrounded them with shiny bows to hang in the windows of concert hall An die Musik LIVE. Once, to ring in the new year, Osato sketched members of a jazz band to welcome guests at Park Ave Pharmacy.

But time passes and cities change. Businesses close. People come and go.

Osato, also a prolific painter who showcased her artwork across the city, died March 4 of heart disease. She was 69.

She was born Aug. 1, 1956, one of three daughters raised by a psychologist and poet mother and war hero father. The family mostly split time between Colorado and Paris. Osato was always creative, loved ones said, and was influenced by French culture and art.

She moved to Baltimore to attend Maryland Institute College of Art, where she learned from Raoul Middleman, the late painter known for his landscapes and portraits. She befriended Middleman and his wife, Ruth, also an artist.

Osato had two distinct art styles, Ruth Middleman said. The first was “biomorphic abstraction,” which uses curves and rounded shapes to mimic nature and body parts. She explored it more after her father died by suicide. She also drew portraits, a more serious and figurative form of art.

“Her biomorphic abstraction revealed a more introspective side of herself,” Middleman said.

After graduating, Osato started waitressing at Gampy’s, where she met fellow MICA alumna Lucy Chittenden in 1980. The two decided to go into the window-trimming business together, and Rozy Windows was born. Their early clients included clothing stores, gift shops and restaurants.

“The window is the forest and the merchandise the trees,” Osato told The Baltimore Sun in a 1982 profile of the business. “If people don’t look at the forest first, they won’t get to the trees.”

About five years in, Chittenden had a child and decided to stay at home; Osato continued painting windows. Her client list grew to roughly 30 businesses by 1990, including a dentist’s office and an art gallery, The Sun reported that year. She changed the decor about every three to six weeks.

She was probably best known for her work at Louie’s. Once, she used 300 pounds of sand and a host of beach books to create a summery window display. She often incorporated literary and cartoon characters, which she traced on foam core boards, according to The Sun.

“I think inanimate objects have their own spiritual quality about them,” she told the paper at the time. “The window display is giving a voice to those objects. I’m their spokesman and cheerleader.”

The ’80s and ’90s were a “golden period” for the Mount Vernon neighborhood, and Osato created much of the magic that defined the area, said Craig Hankin, a MICA classmate and the former head of the Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Visual Arts.

“People would come and just stand in front of a lot of the businesses just to marvel at those designs and talk to their friends about them,” Hankin said.

They often marveled at the artist, too. Osato charmed just about everyone she met with her bubbly personality and distinctive style, he said. She wore vibrant hair accessories, fancy scarves and flowy dresses. She often smelled of cigarettes and perfume and walked around barefoot.

“Artfulness just oozed from her,” Hankin said. “It was just as natural as breathing for her.”

Osato met and married another artist, Ted Leigh, in the mid-1990s. She joined the family during Leigh’s tumultuous divorce from his first wife, with whom he shared three children, Katherine, Ginger and Chip. It was tough at first, but their relationships improved with time.

Osato cherished her role as stepmother, even if she wasn’t always perfect. She could be flaky and self-centered — but she could also be thoughtful and nurturing, her stepchildren said.

Osato always baked two birthday cakes in case someone didn’t like the first. She taught Chip how to draw and saved his creations for years to come. She was a role model for “owning her own weirdness,” he said.

She connected with Ginger over music and poetry and helped her develop an appreciation for art as self-expression. Osato was a “beautifier,” her stepdaughter said, who could find whimsy in even the most mundane settings.

She also gave the best, most intricate gifts, her stepchildren said. She’d wrap the boxes perfectly, sometimes using several paper designs. She’d hide any evidence of tape with lace and ribbon. Inside, she’d tuck trinkets between layers of glittery tissue paper and confetti.

“She loved making people feel special through the things that she would make,” Chip Leigh said.

Osato was a lot like her gifts, her stepdaughter said — beautiful and sparkling on the outside, concealing “layer after layer after layer of complexity and experience and meaning.”

Their relationship was strained in more recent times after Ted Leigh left Osato about 17 years ago. She was heartbroken but knew she wanted to maintain bonds with her stepchildren. They exchanged letters and occasionally met for coffee or a show at an art gallery.

In the past few years, it seemed Osato was “seeking the light and looking forward to coming out of the darkness,” Chip Leigh said.

She started selling hair ornaments. She picked up bird-watching and gardening.

And she still gave the best presents.

As Middleman spoke about her recently, she saw reminders of Osato all around her — in the floor-length sweater she wore, the mug she sipped from and the copy of “Bohemian Manifesto” sitting on the table nearby.

The Banner publishes news stories about people who have recently died in Maryland. If your loved one has passed and you would like to inquire about an obituary, please contact obituary@thebanner.com. If you are interested in placing a paid death notice, please contact groupsales@thebanner.com or visit this website.