Parade, The Barbican, Plymouth, Devon

Image: © David Hallam-Jones Taken: 17 Aug 2018

This Robert Lenkiewicz’s mural is being protected from defacement or deterioration. During his life (b.1941) he produced thousands of paintings and drawings, often on a large scale and in themed 'projects' investigating marginalised communities or difficult social issues e.g. suicide and death. At 16, he was accepted at St Martin's School of Art and later attended the Royal Academy. He rejected contemporary art fashions and threw open the doors of his studios to anyone in need of a roof, down and outs, addicts, criminals and the mentally ill congregated often using some of these characters as the subjects of his paintings. However, these colourful characters were not always welcomed by his neighbours and he was felt obliged to leave London in 1964. He spent a year living in a remote cottage near Lanreath, Cornwall, supporting his young family by teaching, before being offered studio space on the Barbican by local artist and businessman John Nash. His new home and studios here became a magnet for vagrants and street alcoholics. Their numbers swelled and Lenkiewicz was forced to commandeer derelict warehouses in the city to house these “friends”. One of these warehouses also served as a studio and in 1973 became the exhibition space for the Vagrancy Project. He first came to public attention when the media highlighted this giant mural on Plymouth's Barbican in the 1970s. He died of a heart attack in 2002.

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