Story by Reg MacDonald | Photo Caption: The late Leonard French in his home cum studio, a 19th century mill at Heathcote, Central Victoria. In the shadow box above his head is an ancient and rare Boiken figure.
Melanesian artefacts played a big hand in the creative life of Leonard French, the Australian artist who designed and constructed the iconic stained glass ceiling at the National Gallery of Victoria.
French (1928-2017), a member of OAS for a number of years, was a keen collector of tribal art from Papua New Guinea and said these bold and distinctive carvings, their imagery often highlighted with strongly coloured natural pigments, presented him with a new and exciting language of symbols.
For the last 35 years of his life French lived in a converted 19th century flour mill in Heathcote in Central Victoria, where he surrounded himself with PNG tribal art objects and allowed their distinctive designs, applied pigments, and strong presence, to intrude and influence his creative imagination.
This is revealed in a recently published biography on the life and times of Leonard French by his long time friend and fellow OAS member, Reg MacDonald.
In the 1960s and early 1970s French was widely regarded as the most popular artist in Australia. Critically acclaimed by his peers, French, an outgoing Depression boy from the inner Melbourne suburb of Brunswick, had become cock of the walk in Australian contemporary art circles and his commercial success was firmly established. Yet suddenly in 1974 this former sign writer decided to shun the spotlight and seek solitude in sleepy Heathcote.
Renowned for his monumental public stained glass designs-these include the 16 dalle de verre windows in the foyer of the Australian National Library in Canberra; the NGV ceiling which at 51.2m long and 14.6m wide is the largest stained glass ceiling in the world; and the giant mandala window in Monash University’s Robert Blackwood Hall, Melbourne.
French achieved similar acclaim with many of his paintings. Of particular note was his “Campion Series”, twelve paintings on the life and martyrdom of the 16th century English Jesuit priest Edmund Campion; “The Seven days of Creation”, based loosely on Genesis, the first book in the old testament; “The Samos Miniatures” which he painted while on a sabbatical on the Greek island of Samos: and “’The Journey”, ten big paintings on the historic journey of the American people. French painted this series after a year at Yale on a Harkness fellowship.
French acquired his first Melanesian pieces – four Asmat fighting shields – from Senta Taft’s Galleries Primitif in Woollahra, Sydney, in October 1961, immediately after the stunning success of his Campion paintings at Farmers Blaxland Galleries in George Street, Sydney.
Sydney art dealer, Rudy Komon, bought most of the Campion paintings before the Blaxland show opened, and French, then 34 and in the money for the first time in his career, celebrated long and hard at the Marble Bar with his friend. Melbourne poet, academic and author, Vincent Buckley, who opened the Sydney exhibition.
Still slightly tipsy, French caught a cab to Senta Taft’s gallery the next morning and purchased the Asmat shields. He had seen them for the first time soon after their arrival in Sydney when he and Buckley went for a “shake off the cobwebs walk” in Woollahra and accidentally discovered Galleries Primitif.
A symbolist painter who established an iconography of circles, hands, fish serpents, vines, Romanesque arches, oblongs and darts, waves and many other symbols – French became a master at aesthetically arranging these symbols in graphic juxtapositions to illustrate his concepts for his paintings.
Following that acquisition French became a keen collector of items of material culture from Melanesia, and later, after visiting South America, where he represented Australia in the Sao Paulo Biennial in Brazil, he began collecting good examples of pre-Columbian art.
The crucial influence of tribal art, especially that of Oceania and Africa, on modern painting and sculpture has long been recognised. Tribal art influenced the work of Gaugin, Picasso, Brancusi, Modigliani, Klee, Henry Moore, the Fauves and the German expressionists and many others. In Australia Sir Willam Dobell, George Johnson, Frank Hodgkinson, George Baldessin and many others were keen collectors.
Likewise French gained inspiration from tribal art. He surrounded himself with pieces both large and small. For example, from Manus Island a superb small wooden feast bowl with exquisitely carved anthropomorphic figures at either end; from Abelam. a large and colorful house post, and from the Hunstein Mountains an imposing cult figure.
French adopted and adapted some of the remarkably practical Melanesian design features and color combinations into his art practice. French had a good eye and concentrated on pieces that “spoke” to him, pieces that clearly demonstrated uniqueness and brilliance of Melanesian design.
While a member of the Commonwealth Arts Advisory Board, and later the acquisitions committee and interim council of the Australian National Gallery, Len became a forceful and persuasive advocate for the collection of outstanding examples of Oceanic art. Two outstanding examples are the Aibom Stone and the twin Lake Sentani figure in the national collection.
Len was awarded an OBE for his contribution to Australian art and three Australian universities – Monash, La Trobe and the Australian National University – conferred honorary doctorates on him for his services to art and the Australian community.
This article is based on “The boy from Brunswick – Leonard French – A biography”, by Reg MacDonald, published by Australian Scholarly Publishing, 7 Little Lothian St North, North Melbourne, Vic 3051.