Autumn 2006

Issue Number: 92

Flower power: Leonard McComb RA

Leonard McComb RA, Portrait of Simon, Karen Day, and Family
Leonard McComb RA is something of a rarity in these days of knowing irony: an artist with a rapturous love of nature and an innocence of vision. His large family portrait in this summer’s RA show was an impressive distillation of everything he is about: sympathetic portraiture, a love of landscape in all its grandeur and detail, and beautifully observed still life, brimming with light. There is more on offer in the retrospective covering the last 30 years of his career this autumn at Agnew’s gallery. Every picture here is a colourful tapestry of strokes, a feat of pattern-making which never obscures the subject. Some images are familiar, such as the wonderful, commissioned portrait of Philippa Cooper (2002, left) against an elaborate, Egyptian-style hanging. Much of the show comes as a rich surprise. Among the oils, watercolours, drawings and etchings are, for example, some handsome ceramic bowls, painted with portraits. Judith Bumpus

Leonard McComb RA: A Retrospective, 1976–2006, Agnew’s, London (020 7290 9250), 27 Sep–20 Oct

Author:

Judith Bumpus

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