LEONARD FRENCH

Good condition.
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In 1968, when Leonard French turned forty, he was one of the best-known artists in Australia.¹  In that year, the stained glass ceiling of the National Gallery of Victoria was unveiled, a work which instantly achieved the status of an Australian art icon.

Yet French is one of the most unconventional of Australian artists.  Unlike many of his contemporaries, he emerged from the working classes and came to art from technical training as a signwriter.  Furthermore, during his apprenticeship, French associated with the left-wing intelligentsia that frequented the Swanston Family Hotel and his opinions and philosophies on art bore a strong socialist stamp.  Stylistically he is even more of an isolate: as Sasha Grishin describes, French owes no debt to Australian artists and his works reveal no parallels in the Australian art world of the time.²

His materials and technique reflect his owes much to his training as a sign-writer.  Through layers of hessian, enamel and frequently gold leaf he crafts rich and luscious surfaces.  As the present work demonstrates, his paintings are at once semi-abstract decorations and mythic maps, strong statements of humanistic and/or spiritual values.  French divides the painting between a light yellow, gold and orange sky and dark blue oceanic swirls and the fallen moon. 
Above the horizon is a row of figural shapes which probably signify  the dove of Noah's Ark story, but could equally be angels. A school of fish swims below, with another christian-symbolic ikthos floating in the sky. Through this ambiguous iconography and through the layers of hessian and enamel, French builds a complex mosaic of motifs and meanings, empowering the viewer to create her own story.

1.  Sasha Grishin, Leonard French, Craftsman House, Sydney, 1995, p. 10
2.  ibid, p. 12