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Leonard E.B. Andrews, 83, publisher, patron of arts

Leonard E.B. Andrews, 83, of Malvern, a publisher and supporter of the arts who once owned a controversial collection of paintings by Andrew Wyeth, died Jan. 2 of prostate cancer at home.

Leonard E.B. Andrews, 83, of Malvern, a publisher and supporter of the arts who once owned a controversial collection of paintings by Andrew Wyeth, died Jan. 2 of prostate cancer at home.

In 1986, Mr. Andrews bought from Wyeth 240 paintings and sketches of Helga Testorf. The works caused a sensation when they were discovered because Wyeth had done them in secret over 15 years.

Mr. Andrews, who sold the Helga collection in 1989, also owned other Wyeth works, including pencil, ink, watercolor and charcoal studies, and one tempera related to Christina Olson and her brother Alvaro. Sixteen studies showed Wyeth's process leading up to Christina's World, his best-known painting.

"It's just fascinating to me to see how the art is arrived at," Mr. Andrews told a reporter in 1989.

In an earlier interview, Mr. Andrews, whose mother was an artist, said he had been a collector since he was a kid collecting marbles. In 1983, he established the National Arts Program to identify, showcase and reward visual artistic talent in America. The program sponsors 84 annual exhibits, pays for judging, and provides scholarships to art schools for talented participants.

"There are no losers in the program," he said. "Everybody gets a certificate."

He remained chairman and was involved with the organization, attending exhibits and presenting awards, National Arts Program president Kathleen Jamieson said. Jamieson, an interior designer and owner of an antiques shop, had introduced Mr. Andrews to Wyeth.

In addition to works on paper and canvas, Mr. Andrews collected sculptures and had a beautiful sculpture garden, Jamieson said. "He was a very smart man and very creative," she said.

Mr. Andrews grew up as an only child in Texas. During World War II, he was a bomber pilot in the Army Air Force. After his discharge, he attended Southern Methodist University. He was recalled to duty during the Korean War and was a pilot in Korea. He then worked in banking in Dallas.

In the 1950s, he moved to New York and helped establish a credit-card system. In 1959, he published a bank bookkeeping concept, Controlled Credit Communications, outlining a way to eliminate checks in credit exchange.

When a strike shut down New York's seven newspapers in 1962, he talked the owners of the credit-card company he was working for into bankrolling an interim newspaper. The resulting tabloid, the New York Standard, sold 450,000 copies a day during the three-month strike.

Mr. Andrews later worked for a brokerage house and was director of marketing for Food Fair stores in Philadelphia. In 1971, after the collapse of the Penn Central railroad, he published the first issue of the Stockholders & Creditors News Service to report on proceedings related to the Penn Central creditors and their attorneys.

He formed Andrews Publications, and eventually was publishing 23 bimonthly reports concerning litigation proceedings. In 1987, Mr. Andrews sold Andrews Publications and a second company, Andrews Communications, which published trade magazines.

In the 1960s and '70s, he wrote a column of meditative poems published in the New York Daily News and in the Philadelphia Inquirer and reprinted in Reader's Digest and religious publications.

Mr. Andrews, who was married and divorced four times, has no immediate survivors. Services were private.