Michael Leonard: Painter and Illustrator

One of the UK’s most profiling and inspirational artists, Michael Leonard is the subject of a new book, the first to present a comprehensive account of his remarkable work and that tells the story behind the pictures. 

The work of art historian and writer Patrick Bade (Klimt at Home, Music Wars 1937-1945), the new book is both intimate and comprehensive, documenting Leonard’s career and his artistic development, split into chapters to best tell that story. The starting point is a study of Leonard at home, in his spacious first-floor flat in a late-Victorian mansion block in West Kensington which is full of paintings of his own as well as objects and works of art that have inspired him over the years. His early years were, as with many artists was spent searching for his voice and style and several pieces from that period were evident of his promise, including Lazarus (1959) and Ajax with the Dead Achilles (1960). By the time he left Art School in 1957 he was already working as a freelance illustrator and for many years was busy producing artwork for books, magazines, advertising and the press. The illustrated works are perhaps the best link between the young Leonard and the man that would produce recognisable and collection worthy art, especially with Clodia with a Suitor (1968) and the cover artwork for Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales in 1965.

From 1978-1983, in an extraordinary series of work, he depicted scaffolders on a building site across the street from his studio, capturing their unconscious gracefulness, against a backdrop of scaffold and sky. In Changing (1981), for example, workers tug off their shirts in front of the red hoardings of a building site. It is these pieces that really make you want to stop and look, so sumptuous are the colours and so real are the torsos. In 1985, Michael was commissioned by Readers Digest to paint a portrait of HM Queen Elizabeth II,  to celebrate her 60th birthday. Now hanging in the National Portrait Gallery, London, it is probably his best-known work, although not strictly representative of him as an artist. 

Lavishly illustrated with great quality reproductions of paintings, drawings and photographs, Michael Leonard: Painter and Illustrator is a seminal book for any admirer of one of Britain’s greatest artists. 

From £50 and available at Michael Leonard Books