User:LeslieDyerArtist

Leslie Dyer's life

Leslie Dyer was born on 17th April 1909 of British parents at Birchington, Kent. The family later moved to Ramsgate where he attended Chattam House School. A scholarship to The Slade had to be turned down due to the lack of living expenses even for student life. Deteriorating family circumstances led him to leave home at the age of 17 for Canada and the United States where he undertook various occupations ranging from bank clerk to cattle ranching.

When his mother was dying he returned to an economically depressed Britain in the early thirties and to several years of unemployment. Enforced leisure allowed him to pursue what was to become a lifelong commitment. He was to attend Camberwell School of Art where he became a loyal student of the late William Johnston. Later he attended the Central School of Art and Crafts. During this time he was elected a full member of the Artist's International Association, taking an active part in its affairs.

In 1940 he joined the Army and served for four years in the Middle East where he had a one man show. It was during his army service in the Middle East that he initiated and organised with the support of the A.I.A. and the British Council the United Nations Exhibition of works done by active servicemen.

On returning to Britain Leslie exhibited in Paris (Raymond Duncan Gallery) in London (Redfern Gallery, Alwyn Gallery, Moltan Gallery, Upper Street Gallery and Drian Gallery) in Liverpool ( the Bluecoat Gallery). During the 1950s Leslie had an art club on a Thames barge which featured in a 1953 edition of Picture Post magazine.

Leslie Dyer died in 1983 in Laon, France. He is buried in the city cemetery.

Leslie Dyer's Art

Leslie Dyer was one of those sturdy English artists who, uninfluenced by fashion or popularity, pursued his own course with admirable singlemindedness. His subjects are few - clouds, rocks, trees, most particularly trees and the spirits of those natural forms - more often than not expressed in terms of the human form, a tradition initiated by Greeks and continued by philosophers, poets and artists of Renaissance Europe.

Some of Dyer's paintings show beings at different stages of development, attempting some form of relationship, suggesting that different modes of being and creatures from different periods of time may meet and communicate.

Dyer's shapes and colours depicted in his paintings were not always premeditated, but sometimes happened by chance. He invited the viewer to interpret his work as they wished.

Dyer was often asked why he always painted nude figures. He felt that clothes indicated a position in time or space. The people in Dyer's paintings were not bound by time and space, they are in other dimensions. Perhaps they are nude because naked bodies are almost always beautiful; especially the bodies of women. Some of Dyer's figures do not seem to have reached full humanity, others are changing into beings other than human.

Dyer so often painted scenes beside the sea. He believed that we originally came from the sea and that he needed to be beside it in order to contemplate. Dyer was also fascinated by the story of Aphrodite, the goddess of love, beauty and fertility, rising from the sea.