Dr Leonard McComb RA
“If one person smiles when they see my work it is enough, my life has had a meaning and a shape” Leonard McComb RA
The Golden Man
Royal Academician Leonard McComb is a very unusual and different artist from his contemporaries in his eclectic approach to his art. He has various works in the Tate stretching from Paintings to Drawings to Prints to Sculptures. Famously (or infamously depending on who you speak to) one of his sculptures “The Golden Man” is at the Tate after being ‘excused’ from an exhibition at the Lincoln Cathedral following a protest from a senior clergy-man about its indecency.
Over the years, since his graduation from the Slade, in 1960, Dr McComb has taught at various art schools including Oxford Brooks University, Sir John Cass College, Slade School of Fine Art, Goldsmith College and The Royal College of Art. He even made time in 1974 to found The Sunningwell School of Art in Oxford.
Dr Leonard McComb RA giving a lesson in portraiture at The Essential School of Painting
We at The Essential School of Painting are delighted that he has found the time to teach with us again.
He has over the years been highly credited and amongst his many awards are the Royal Academy’s Jubilee Award (1977), The Times Watercolour Prize (1992-1993) and Nordstern Print Prize (1997).
Novelist Doris Lessing
Major commissions include the portrait of the novelist Doris Lessing for The National Portrait Gallery, London (1999) and in 2000 The Vatican requested that he design a jubilee medal featuring the late Pope John Paul II and the late Archbishop Basil Hume commemorating the millennium.
In 1991 Dr Leonard McComb was elected Royal Academician and in 1995 elected to Keeper of the Royal Academy placing him in charge of the Royal Academy Schools until 1998.
Today his works are found all over the world in public and private collections but it’s his serenity and unassuming nature that strikes one when you attend his class. We experienced this when Dr McComb last taught a class with us in 2006. The way he approaches his work and how he teaches and discusses art is testament to his own words, “ I see everything as a portrait… even fruit”. His keen interest in detail, whether a portrait of a person, a flower, landscape or still life is very apparent in his art, in his speech and in his teaching.
Leonard McComb will be holding a special one day class with us on the 21st of March 2015 read more…