Leonard French

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Lead-glazed roof as a work of art in the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne
Glass artwork: four seasons (presumably autumn)
Leaded glazing set up in the La Trobe University Sculpture Park in Melbourne. Four seasons (from left summer, autumn (probably))
Lead glazing, four seasons (from left: winter, spring (presumably))

Leonard French (born October 8, 1928 in Brunswick , Victoria , † January 10, 2017 ) was an Australian designer and artist who worked with glass.

His most famous work in Australia is an artistically designed glass roof in the National Gallery of Victoria , one of the largest glass works of art in the world.

life and work

Leonard French studied advertising design at Melbourne Technical College in Melbourne from 1944 to 1947 . In 1949 he first exhibited paintings and murals at Tye's Gallery in Melbourne. From 1949 to 1951 he went on study trips to Belgium , Ireland , Great Britain and the Netherlands . He stayed for a long time at The Abbey Arts Center and Museum in New Barnet in the London area , where other Australian artists such as Grahame King , Inge Neufeld and Robert Klippel were. From 1952 to 1956 he was a lecturer at the Melbourne School of Printing and Graphic Arts . He then worked as a curator at the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne from 1956 to 1960 . During this time he began his series of pictures Campion , which he exhibited in 1961.

French won the Peace Congress Prize in 1959 and received scholarships to study in India , Indonesia , China, and Japan . In 1962 and 1963 he went on study trips to Italy , Spain , France , Great Britain and Greece , where he stayed for a long time on the island of Samos . In 1965 French exhibited his Samos miniatures in Melbourne, Perth and Adelaide and in the same year went on a study trip to the USA .

French lived and worked in Heathcote .

Persian carpet of light

French was commissioned in 1963 for a large stained glass window for the Great Hall at the National Gallery of Victoria, which cemented his reputation as an artist in Australia. The 13.72 meter high, 60.90 × 15.24 meter glass roof in the Great Hall of the National Gallery of Victoria became his most famous work, which consists of 224 assembled triangles, each weighing 300 kilograms. The work is also known as the Persian carpet of light (Persian carpet of light ). Birds, a turtle and a snake, for example, are hidden in the large glass field, and they create patterns on the walls in sunlight.

The glass artwork took from 1965 to 1970, and other such commissions followed from Monash University in 1971, La Trobe University in 1978, and Haileybury College in 1987.

Work (selection)

literature

  • Vincent Buckley: Leonard French , Grayflower Publications Melbourne (1962)
  • Sasha Grishin: Leonard French , Craftman House Sydney (1995)

Web links

Commons : Leonard French  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ theaustralian.com.au , accessed February 20, 2017
  2. ↑ a b Vita on the page of the Eva Breuer art gallery. ( Memento of the original from September 6, 2006 in the web archive archive.today ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved August 8, 2010  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.evabreuerartdealer.com.au
  3. ↑ Jenny Brown: A diamond-cut masterwork of colored light. The Age dated June 19, 2010 . Retrieved August 8, 2010
personal data
SURNAME French, Leonard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Australian glass artist
DATE OF BIRTH October 8, 1928
PLACE OF BIRTH Brunswick , Australia
DATE OF DEATH January 10, 2017
Place of death Melbourne , Australia