Robert Oscar Lenkiewicz (31 December 1941 – August 5, 2002) was one of the South West England's

South West England

South West England is one of the regions of England defined by the Government of the United Kingdom for statistical and other purposes. It is the largest such region in area, covering and comprising Bristol, Gloucestershire, Somerset, Dorset, Wiltshire, Devon, Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly. ...

 most celebrated artists of modern times. Perennially unfashionable in high art circles, his work was nevertheless popular with the public. He painted on a large scale, usually in themed Projects investigating hidden communities (Vagrancy 1973, Mental Handicap 1976) or difficult social issues (Suicide 1980, Death 1982).

Early life

Robert Lenkiewicz was born in London in 1941, the son of refugees who ran a Jewish hotel in Fordwych Road, whose elderly residents included a number of Holocaust survivors. He was inspired to paint after seeing Charles Laughton

Charles Laughton

Charles Laughton was an English-American stage and film actor, screenwriter, producer and director.-Early life and career:...

 in Alexander Korda's

Alexander Korda

Sir Alexander Korda was a Hungarian-born British producer and film director. He was a leading figure in the British film industry, the founder of London Films and the owner of British Lion Films, a film distributing company.-Life and career:The elder brother of filmmakers Zoltán Korda and Vincent...

 biographical film

Biographical film

A biographical film, or biopic , is a film that dramatizes the life of an actual person or people. They differ from films “based on a true story” or “historical films” in that they attempt to comprehensively tell a person’s life story or at least the most historically important years of their...

 Rembrandt. At 16, Lenkiewicz was accepted at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design

Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design

Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design is a constituent college of the University of the Arts London. The school has an outstanding international reputation, and is considered one of the world's leading art and design institutions...

 and later attended the Royal Academy

Royal Academy

The Royal Academy of Arts is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly, London. The Royal Academy of Arts has a unique position in being an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects whose purpose is to promote the creation, enjoyment and...

. However, he was virtually impervious to contemporary art

Contemporary art

Contemporary art can be defined variously as art produced at this present point in time or art produced since World War II. The definition of the word contemporary would support the first view, but museums of contemporary art commonly define their collections as consisting of art produced...

 fashions, being more interested in his favourite paintings in the National Gallery.

Inspired by the example of Albert Schweitzer

Albert Schweitzer

Albert Schweitzer OM was a German theologian, organist, philosopher, physician, and medical missionary. He was born in Kaysersberg in the province of Alsace-Lorraine, at that time part of the German Empire...

, Lenkiewicz threw open the doors of his studios to anyone in need of a roof – down and outs, addicts, criminals and the mentally ill congregated there. These individuals were the subjects of his paintings as a young man. However, such colourful characters were not welcomed by his neighbours and he was obliged to leave London in 1964.

Move to Plymouth

He spent a year living in a remote cottage near Lanreath

Lanreath

Lanreath is a civil parish and a village in southeast Cornwall, United Kingdom. The village is situated five miles west-northwest of Looe. The name Lanreath means 'church of Raydhogh' and it has been known variously as Lanreythow, Lanrathew, or Lanrethou...

 in Cornwall

Cornwall

Cornwall is a unitary authority and ceremonial county of England, within the United Kingdom. It is bordered to the north and west by the Celtic Sea, to the south by the English Channel, and to the east by the county of Devon, over the River Tamar. Cornwall has a population of , and covers an area of...

, supporting his young family by teaching, before being offered studio space on the Barbican in Plymouth

Plymouth

Plymouth is a city and unitary authority area on the coast of Devon, England, about south-west of London. It is built between the mouths of the rivers Plym to the east and Tamar to the west, where they join Plymouth Sound...

 by local artist John Nash. The artist's home and studios once more became a magnet for vagrants and street alcoholics, who then sat for paintings. Their numbers swelled and Lenkiewicz was forced to commandeer derelict warehouses in the city to house the 'dossers'. One of these warehouses also served as a studio and in 1973 became the exhibition space for the Vagrancy Project.

He first came to public attention when the media highlighted his giant mural man on Plymouth's Barbican in the 1970s. Another furore occurred in 1981 when he faked his own death in preparation for the forthcoming project of paintings on the theme of death (1982): "I could not know what it was like to be dead," said the artist, "but I could discover what it was like to be thought dead."

Later life and death

After his first exhibition with an established art dealer, in the 1990s Lenkiewicz's work enjoyed growing commercial success and some recognition by the establishment. He received a major retrospective

Retrospective

Retrospective generally means to take a look back at events that already have taken place. For example, the term is used in medicine, describing a look back at a patient's medical history or lifestyle.-Music:...

 in 1997 at Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery

Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery

Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery in the Drake Circus area of Plymouth, Devon, England is the largest museum and art gallery in the city. It was built in 1907-10 by Thornely and Rooke in Edwardian Baroque style. Its interior was restored in 1954 after being gutted in The Blitz.The Museum has...

, attended by 42,000 visitors.

Lenkiewicz, aged 60, died of a heart attack in 2002. Despite painting 10,000 works rated of 'national importance' by the British Museum

British Museum

The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...

 he had only £12 cash in his possession (having never opened a bank account), and owed £2 million to various creditors.

Since his death examples of his best paintings have fetched ever-rising prices in London auction rooms. In his obituary of Lenkiewicz, art critic David Lee

David Lee (art critic)

David Lee is an outspoken, English, contemporary, art critic—condemning conceptual art in general and the Turner Prize in particular...

 observed: "Robert's greatest gift was to show us that an artist could be genuinely concerned about social and domestic issues and attempt the difficult task of expressing this conscience through the deeply unfashionable medium of figurative painting. In that sense he was one of few serious painters of contemporary history."

The rise in Lenkiewicz's popularity was shown in a 2008 auction of his personal collection of his own works, the auction of his paintings and library raised £2.1million. The auction was held by Bearnes Auctioneers at Westpoint Arena

Westpoint Arena

Westpoint is a multi-purpose arena, at Clyst St Mary, near Exeter, England. The capacity of the venue is 7,500 people.It hosts local concerts, fairs and exhibitions.It is the venue for the Devon County Show.-External links:*...

 in Exeter.

Lenkiewicz never paid tax or kept any records of sales of his works.

In 2009 when his estate was finally valued after lawyers spent 7 years going through personal effects he was found to have left £6.5 million. As well as paintings the estate included a £1 million book collection.

The father of 11 children, Lenkiewicz was the stepfather of Bianca Eliot, now the widow of Jago Eliot, Lord Eliot

Jago Eliot, Lord Eliot

Jago Nicholas Aldo Eliot, Lord Eliot was the son of Peregrine Eliot, 10th Earl of St Germans, and Jacquetta Eliot, Countess of St Germans...

. His pupils include Piran Bishop

Piran Bishop

Piran Bishop is a British portraitist.-Early career:Bishop is based in Exeter, and studied at Art Colleges in Exeter and Brighton. He was sketched by Robert Lenkiewicz as a child, and became a "casual student" of his from 1994 until Lenkiewicz's death in 2002...

, Yana Travail, Dan Wheatley and Lisa Stokes. His daughter Alice Lenkiewicz is a painter, poet and editor of the literary magazine, Neon Highway. His stepdaughter, Rebecca Lenkiewicz

Rebecca Lenkiewicz

Rebecca Lenkiewicz is a British playwright. She attended Plymouth High School for Girls, then progressed to a BA in Film and English at the University of Kent from 1985 to 1989 and then to a BA Acting Course at the Central School of Speech and Drama from 1996 to 1999.-Career:As a writer, her plays...

, is an accomplished playwright who has had her work performed at the Royal National Theatre

Royal National Theatre

The Royal National Theatre in London is one of the United Kingdom's two most prominent publicly funded theatre companies, alongside the Royal Shakespeare Company...

.

Vagrancy Project

The Vagrancy Project consisted of several dozen paintings of vagrant

Vagrancy (people)

A vagrant is a person in poverty, who wanders from place to place without a home or regular employment or income.-Definition:A vagrant is "a person without a settled home or regular work who wanders from place to place and lives by begging;" vagrancy is the condition of such persons.-History:In...

s and a large book of notes written by the dossers themselves and those involved in their 'care' and control. Lenkiewicz hoped that the exhibition, and the down and outs' own stories, would illuminate the plight of these 'invisible people' and galvanize the community into humane action on their behalf. The format of the 'Project' – combining thematically linked paintings with the publication of research notes and the collected observations of the sitters – was to be used consistently throughout Lenkiewicz's career. Projects such as Mental Handicap (1976), Old Age (1979) and Death (1982) followed the one on vagrancy as Lenkiewicz continued to examine the lives of ostracised, hidden sections of the community and bring them to the attention of the general public.

The Paul Downes

Paul Downes

Paul Downes is an English folk guitarist, singer and composer. He has appeared on eight albums with bands, three highly acclaimed solo albums and has over 150 session credits...

 song "Robert and the Cowboys" was inspired by the project and describes a number of the vagrants.

Other projects

In a parallel line of inquiry, Lenkiewicz also investigated some of society's most persistent taboos in Projects such as Jealousy

Jealousy

Jealousy is a second emotion and typically refers to the negative thoughts and feelings of insecurity, fear, and anxiety over an anticipated loss of something that the person values, particularly in reference to a human connection. Jealousy often consists of a combination of presenting emotions...

 (1977), Orgasm

Orgasm

Orgasm is the peak of the plateau phase of the sexual response cycle, characterized by an intense sensation of pleasure...

 (1978), Suicide

Suicide

Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...

 (1980) and Sexual Behaviour

Human sexual behavior

Human sexual activities or human sexual practices or human sexual behavior refers to the manner in which humans experience and express their sexuality. People engage in a variety of sexual acts from time to time, and for a wide variety of reasons...

 (1983). Here, Lenkiewicz often adopted an allegorical pictorial style to portray human physiology in extremis. Lenkiewicz came to the conclusion that the kinds of sensations people felt when a lover abandoned them or when their cherished beliefs were threatened were identical in kind to the 'withdrawal symptoms' and anxieties experienced by addicts or alcoholics over their preferred narcotic. These Projects thus became an extended study in 'addictive behaviour' (the title of his 20th, unfinished, Project).

The conclusions drawn from his own observations were supported by his private library, which he viewed as a history of 'fanatical belief systems'. Lenkiewicz contended that in the absence of any good reasons for our beliefs or emotions we must always look to human physiology for an explanation of fanatical or obsessive behaviour and that it is there that we shall discover the roots of fascism – the tendency to treat another person as property.
Lenkiewicz saw all his Projects (21 in all) as part of a large-scale investigation into the origins of fascism - the tendency to treat other people as property - and the roots of obsessive and fanatical behaviour.

On and off, for nearly 30 years, he worked on his great masterpiece, the Riddle Mural in the Round Room at Port Eliot

Port Eliot

Port Eliot in St Germans, Cornwall, is the seat of the Eliot family, whose current head is Peregrine Eliot, 10th Earl of St Germans. Port Eliot comprises a house with its own church which is the parish church of St Germans. An earlier church building was the cathedral for the whole of Cornwall...

 house, home of the Earl of St. Germans, but died before its completion. Half of the mural, in the 40 feet (12.2 m) room, shows death, destruction, insanity, unrequited love, and the apocalyptic end of the world. The other half reflects love and affection, friendships, harmony, proportion and consensus. Hidden in the work are various references to family skeletons, art history and cabalistic mysteries, hence the name - the Riddle Mural.

Library

Over forty years Lenkiewicz built up a library of some 25,000 volumes devoted to art

Art

Art is the product or process of deliberately arranging items in a way that influences and affects one or more of the senses, emotions, and intellect....

, the occult

Occult

The word occult comes from the Latin word occultus , referring to "knowledge of the hidden". In the medical sense it is used to refer to a structure or process that is hidden, e.g...

 sciences, demonolatry, magic

Magic (paranormal)

Magic is the claimed art of manipulating aspects of reality either by supernatural means or through knowledge of occult laws unknown to science. It is in contrast to science, in that science does not accept anything not subject to either direct or indirect observation, and subject to logical...

, philosophy

Philosophy

Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...

, especially metaphysics

Metaphysics

Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world, although the term is not easily defined. Traditionally, metaphysics attempts to answer two basic questions in the broadest possible terms:...

, alchemy

Alchemy

Alchemy is an influential philosophical tradition whose early practitioners’ claims to profound powers were known from antiquity. The defining objectives of alchemy are varied; these include the creation of the fabled philosopher's stone possessing powers including the capability of turning base...

, death

Death

Death is the permanent termination of the biological functions that sustain a living organism. Phenomena which commonly bring about death include old age, predation, malnutrition, disease, and accidents or trauma resulting in terminal injury....

, psychology

Psychology

Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...

 and sexuality

Human sexuality

Human sexuality is the awareness of gender differences, and the capacity to have erotic experiences and responses. Human sexuality can also be described as the way someone is sexually attracted to another person whether it is to opposite sexes , to the same sex , to either sexes , or not being...

, preoccupations which surface in some of his paintings. His collection of books on magic and witchcraft was one of the finest in private hands and was largely sold at Sotheby's

Sotheby's

Sotheby's is the world's fourth oldest auction house in continuous operation.-History:The oldest auction house in operation is the Stockholms Auktionsverk founded in 1674, the second oldest is Göteborgs Auktionsverk founded in 1681 and third oldest being founded in 1731, all Swedish...

 in 2003, and a substantial part of the remainder of his library was sold at auction

Auction

An auction is a process of buying and selling goods or services by offering them up for bid, taking bids, and then selling the item to the highest bidder...

 in May 2007 by Lyon & Turnbull

Lyon & Turnbull

Lyon & Turnbull is a privately owned international auction house based in Scotland. Founded in 1826, it is Scotland’s oldest auction house; the largest independent auction house in the United Kingdom outside of London and one of the fastest growing auction houses in the UK.The firm has its...

.

External links

• 'Lenkiewicz: The Legacy' exhibition at Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery, 8 April to 11 July 2009
• Lenkiewicz.org - non-profit forum with news and discussions
• The Lenkiewicz.Book Project - a collaboratively edited guide to the artist, Robert Lenkiewicz
• remembering Robert- the new book on Lenkiewicz
• Port Eliot House, St. Germans, Cornwall - home of the masterpiece, the Riddle Mural