Introduction

Leonard McComb RA is an Irish artist who grew up in Manchester who worked in painting and sculpture and is known for being a master of drawings and watercolour on a monumental scale, a select number of iconic bronze sculptures and a collection of iconic portraits in oil paint towards the latter half of his career. McComb was hugely versatile and also produced prints, ceramics and mosaics and other media. 

His work resides in major collections such as the National Portrait Gallery, The Tate, British Museum, V&A collection and was elected Royal Academician in 1990. His work has been shown at the Hayward Gallery, Venice Biennale, New York Studio School and he has had solo exhibitions at the Royal Academy of Arts and Serpentine Gallery to name a few.  McComb is a giant of figurative painting and sculpture and one of the finest draughtsmen of his generation. 

Resiliently independent and never bowing to art trends, McComb’s life and works is now celebrated in the artist’s first major 220 page monograph published by Beam Editions with a major essay by Richard Davey. 

Early Beginnings 

Born in 1930 in Glasgow and spending his first years in Newtownards close to Belfast, Leonard McComb was the eldest of six siblings and the son of a protestant father Archie and catholic mother Delia Bridgit. When the artist was still in his infancy the family moved from their native Ireland to Wythenshawe, Manchester to escape the high levels of unemployment and poverty that was rife throughout 1930s Britain.  

This working class suburb of Manchester would have offered little in terms of an artistic environment or education for McComb as a child. Britain's major art schools, galleries and museums were still centred around the capital. Like many suburban areas at the time Wythenshawe was developed into a large estate as part of a government initiative to rehouse Manchester's industrial workforce. 

It’s an unlikely breeding ground for an artist at a time when access to good education was rare and access to the arts was for the privileged few. Archie, McComb’s father, a painter and decorator by trade and amateur artist perhaps provided one source of inspiration. While Archie’s paintings may have captured the young McComb’s imagination, it was McCombs' access to nature on the edges of Wythenshawe that provided his biggest inspiration and enduring theme throughout the artist’s career that led to the artist's most well know quote: 

‘All art is an abstraction of nature’.  

With the death of his father at a relatively young age a young whimsical McComb became a steely determined young man and ultimately the ambitious artist that transcended these humble beginnings.  

Education

McComb was an exceptional student, the only member of the family to win a scholarship to St Greggs Grammar School. It was during these teenage years the artist learnt to draw, observing countryside that bordered his Whythenshawe home. Determined to pursue his education after serving national service at 18, he enrolled on an evening course at Manchester School of art. He also worked as a junior graphic designer at local company Griffiths Hughes who proved to be good mentors, encouraging the young artists with after work critiques of the artists early paintings of the Mersey.  McComb soon moved to a flat in Manchester’s Moss Side and perhaps began the first steps to becoming an independent artist. As the swinging 60s approached and now living independently, McComb as a young man began to adopt the flamboyant eccentricity that was perhaps synonymous with artists of the day, fine silk scarves found at flea markets became his signature accessory. With his new found independence and space to focus on his artwork McComb excelled, winning a scholarship to the Slade School of Fine Art in the late 1950s to pursue a degree in fine art. He then followed his degree with a postgraduate in Sculpture also at the Slade.

After completing his education McComb moved to take a teaching post in Bristol and he began to work on the artist’s most significant sculpture ‘Portrait of a young man standing’ (Tate Collection), a life sized bronze of man with an open hand and clenched fist. The sculpture was started in 1963 at the height of the cold war and was eventually finished in 1983. 

The original development period of 1962 took place against the backdrop of one of the Cold War's most dangerous phases. In quick succession the Cuban Missile Crisis (1962), President Kennedy's assassination (1963) and the escalation of the Vietnam War (1954-75) illustrated the destructive power of mankind. McComb, who was deeply concerned by these events, deliberately conceived ‘Portrait of a Young Man Standing’ as a positive image of humanity. He has described the fundamental purpose of the sculpture as an attempt 'to create an image of a whole person, his physical and spiritual life being inseparably fused [and implying] the embedded capacity for powerful and gentle action, both physical and intellectual'. There are two versions of the sculpture in the UK - A gold-leafed version in the Tate and a polished bronze version in Manchester Art Gallery.

He produced little under 10 bronzes, his preferred medium in his lifetime. Key works such as ‘Two Forms’ (1983), ‘Three Trees’ (1983) and in particular ‘Sunlight on Seawaves’ (1983) all inspired by natural forms.

Paintings

Leonard McComb is perhaps best known as a painter and draughtsman despite studying sculpture. His luminescent paintings are manifestations of an understanding of nature as a force that is indivisibly physical and spiritual. For McComb, nature's 'forms and shapes radiate from a centre’ an idea which is often reflected in radiating lines that surround the artist’s subject matter. After destroying almost all of his work prior to the early 1970s as he felt that it did not reflect his own vision, he turned to experimenting with watercolour and began to create a unique body of paintings that defined his reputation as one of the most distinctive painters of his generation. 

His first solo show ‘Blossoms and Flowers’ came in 1979 at the Coracle Press in South London, an independent space with an illustrious history of showing significant artists of the last 40 years. This led on to the artist's inclusion in 1980 Venice Biennale ‘Open 80’ Exhibition alongside works by Roger Ackling, Tony Cragg and Leonard McComb.

In 1983 the artist was subject of major touring Arts Council Touring exhibition ‘Leonard McComb Drawing, Painting Sculpture’ organised by Museum of Modern Art, Oxford and shown at the Serpentine Gallery, London; City Art Gallery Manchester, Gardener Arts Centre University of Sussex, and the Fruit Market Gallery Edinburgh. The exhibition featured many of the artist’s most iconic works from this period which included watercolours on a monumental scale. 

From the late 80s onwards McComb returned to oil painting producing a body of exceptional portraits. The tradition of portrait painting has a long history of being commissioned by the powerful and wealthy. From Royalty to captains of industry, the portrait in art was largely reserved for the privileged few. McComb is one of the great portrait painters of his generation and perhaps one of the most radical. Throughout McComb’s life he rarely undertook portrait commissions, choosing to paint friends, family, colleagues, students and sometimes people he met on the street. McComb wanted to catch the energy he found in the people he observed that inspired him. 

His most recognised works include a portrait of the writer Doris Lessing (1999) Gallery, Portrait of Alfie Howard (2003), ‘Carel Weight’ (1990) all in the National Portrait Gallery and ‘Portrait of the artist’s mother’ 1993 which is on permanent display at the Manchester Art Gallery. 


Teaching 

McComb's work as a tutor is an important part of artists’ history. Dedicated to teaching life drawing as fundamental practice in the arts, he was an advocate of maintaining the life room during a period where conceptual art was becoming a dominant force in the art schools. He was a founding member of Sunningwell Art School in 1973 in Oxfordshire, a charity that provided affordable arts education that recently celebrated its 50th year. In a time where university fees are the highest they have been in British history, an affordable art school accessible to all was a radical approach to arts education. In 1995 after a career in teaching at various institutions that included Oxford Brookes University and Goldsmiths he became the Keeper of the Royal Academy Schools, one of the most prestigious art schools in the world. In 2004 he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by Oxford Brookes University. 

Above all the professional recognition, throughout his life McComb shared his belief of the benefits of the arts with friends, young artists and was a mentor and inspiration to many. His belief that all living things are connected by an energy was reflected in his approach to positively sharing his immense knowledge and talent and inspiring the next generation.