Born in London in the 1940s, early influences included his mentor, the art historian and teacher, David Morris, and the world around Spitalfields, the City of London, Battersea and the Thames embankment. He went to school, spent time in the major art galleries and museums, and worked in a variety of jobs and businesses in London before moving to South Wales in the 1970s. A spell in the Merchant Navy gave him a taste for maritime environments.
Leonard Beard has been working as an artist in South and West Wales since the 1980s and exhibited widely across the principality and beyond. He has made a significant contribution to the development of art in South Wales particularly in the early phases of a number of now well-established galleries.
His love of the Welsh landscape is apparent in all his work. His portrayal of flowers is particularly sensitive, seeing them as he does as symbolic of our intimate connection with nature. In the same way, his coastal and sea paintings reflect our bond with primeval energy. His range of work reflects his determination not to be pinned down to a particular motif, and his ability to move through the continuing process of change as a painter.
His work encompasses a wide range of subject matter. His determination to remain a free spirit, retaining the capacity to continually evolve, has meant that his work has not been easy to categorise or contain. The use of colour and light and the relationship between configuration and abstraction have intensified in recent work, producing fresh perceptual and interpretive challenges for the viewer.
Sadly Leonard died in February 2008. His is greatly missed by his family, his friends, fellow artists ourselves, and all in the arts community.
Paintings |
