Michael leonard actress

I was born in India in 1933 to British parents and in 1945 at the end of the war in Europe I returned to England to complete my education. In 1954, after two years of National Service in the army, I went to St Martin’s School of Art in London and studied Commercial Design and Illustration, (subjects that at the time seemed more likely than fine art to provide me with a viable future). By the time I left Art School in 1957 I was already working as a freelance illustrator and for many years was busy producing artwork for books, magazines, advertising and the press. Much of the work on offer was stimulating and enjoyable but after a time I felt the need to express a more personal vision. Lunch hour visits to the National Gallery fed a growing ambition to make pictures for the wall rather than the page — work that would be experienced in the original rather than in reproduction.

As an illustrator I worked in a small studio attached to the offices of my agents ‘Artist Partners’ in Soho. Meanwhile at home I experimented, trying to discover my voice as a painter. Some of this

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