44. LEONARD McCOMB
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Title
Apple Blossom II
From Blossoms and Flowers
Lithograph
on paper
Image:
445 x 346 mm
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Portrait of a Young Man
Standing
Date1963–83
MediumBronze and gold leaf
DimensionsObject: 1760 x 522 x 465
mm, 118 kg (Gross 241kg)
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Sgt.
Bert Bowers, 1991.
Oil on canvas. 1400 x 914 mm.
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BIO & STEPS
Born:
Dr Leonard
McComb was born in Glasgow in 1930.
Studies:
He
studied at the Junior Art School Manchester and later at the Regional College
of Art Manchester (1954-56) before attending Slade School where he attained a
post graduate in Sculpture in (1960-61).
He went on to teach at various art schools, including Oxford
Brookes University, Sir John Cass College, Slade School of Fine Art, Royal
College of Art and Goldsmiths College, and in 1974 he founded the Sunningwell
School of Art, Oxford.
Having destroyed most of his early work, McComb was
included in the exhibition The Human Clay held at the Hayward Gallery in 1976,
his first solo show being held the following year at the Coracle Press. In 1983
an Arts Council touring exhibition entitled Leonard McComb Drawing Painting
Sculpture was organised by the Museum of Modern Art, Oxford and shown at the
Serpentine Gallery, London; City Art Gallery, Manchester; Gardner Arts Centre,
University of Sussex and the Fruit Market Gallery, Edinburgh. His work
continued to be exhibited in many important group shows including the Whitechapel
Art Gallery in 1982, the Tate Gallery in 1984, the Hirshhorn Museum, Washington
D.C. in 1986 and the Museum of Modern Art, Brussels in 1987.Among McComb’s many
awards are the Royal Academy’s Jubilee Award (1977); Korn Ferry Award (1990);
Times Watercolour Prize (1992 and 1993); Nordstern Print Prize (1997); and the
RWS Prize (1998). McComb has received many major commissions for private and
corporate collections throughout the UK, Europe and the USA. In 1999 he
completed a commissioned portrait of the novelist Doris Lessing for the
National Portrait Gallery, London. The following year he was selected by the
Vatican to design a Jubilee Medal, featuring Pope John Paul II and the late
Archbishop Basil Hume, for the worldwide series to commemorate the Millennium.
McComb was elected Royal Academician in 1991 (ARA
1987) and in 1995 was elected Keeper of the Royal Academy, placing him in
charge of the Royal Academy Schools until 1998. He was made an Honorary Member
of the Royal Watercolour Society and the Royal Society of Printmakers in 1996.
Nowadays:
McComb lives and works in
London.
Themes and
style:
Leonard
McComb has described his work as visual abstractions after nature. He is very
interested in the detail in nature and declares that everything he draws or
paints whether a portrait head, flower, landscape, still life or breaking sea
wave is for him a portrait.
Techniques:
He has works in
oil, watercolour, print as well as sculpture.
He is often defined as a draughtsman, painter, sculptor, print maker,
mosaic and tapestry designer.
Solo Exhibitions
2004
Drawings, Paintings and Sculpture, Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh
Wolsey
Art Gallery, Ipswich
2001
Between Earth and Heaven, Museum of Modern Art, Ostende
2000
Leonard McComb Portraits, New York Studio School Gallery
1997 The
Pursuit of Painting, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin
1993
Leonard McComb Drawings and Painting,
Browse
and Darby, London
The
Sussex Scene, Hove Museum and Art Gallery,
Towner
Art Gallery, Eastbourne
1992 The
Discerning Eye, Mall Galleries, London
New
Works on Paper, Gillian Jason Gallery at the Business Design Centre, Islington
Selected Collections
Arts Council
Cecil Higgins Art Gallery and Museum,
Bedford
Birmingham City Art Gallery
British Council
British Museum
Cambridge University
Manchester Art Gallery
National Portrait Gallery
Swindon Art Gallery
Tate Gallery
Towner Art Gallery, Eastbourne
Ulster Museum
Victoria and Albert Museum
Art Galleries of Worcester and Belfast
Leicester City Gallery
Selected Commissions & Awards
2006 Commissioned to design mosaics for
Westminster Cathedral, London
2004 Awarded Honorary Doctorate by
Oxford Brookes University
In his own words:
“ I see everything as a portrait… even
fruit”.
Representative
Galleries:
Ramis Barquet
Lacan
Inverarte
For
more Information:
leonardmccomb.co.uk/