French studied at Melbourne Technical College c. 1944-47; independent study in England, Ireland and Belgium, 1949-51; Asia, 1960-61, Greece, Italy, Spain, France and England, 1962-3; America, 1965. As the creator of large-scale symmetrical designs in a wide variety of media, he occupies a unique place in Australian art. Basically romantic, his concept of art fitted him from the beginning for the demands of large architectonic projects in stained-glass, mosaics, tapestry and mural painting. His first mural was an Orozco-style work done for a Brunswick church when he was nineteen; the style was soon abandoned but it showed his innate capacity for large scale-design. Brought up in the Melbourne industrial suburb of Brunswick, he left the state school at the official school-leaving age to work on farms and as a signwriter. He worked his passage to the UK late in 1949 and spent a brief period in London before working in Ireland. He also spent several hungry weeks on the waterfront at Amsterdam where he saw pictures by the French painter Marcel Grommaire, and the Belgian Constant Permeke. He returned to Melbourne early in 1951 and a year later the first of his Iliad pictures appeared at the Peter Bray Gallery, Melbourne. These pictures were followed by a larger exhibition on the Odyssey theme at the VAS galleries in 1955. He painted a large mural for the Legend espresso bar, Melbourne, in 1956, and in the same year completed a monumental mural for the Beaurepaire Physical Education Centre at the Uni. of Melbourne. About the time he abandoned signwriting for teaching and in 1959 won an Asian scholarship which took him to Indonesia, India, China and Japan, and led towards the major source of his later inspiration - the study of Byzantine art. Towards the end of 1960 he unsuccessfully contested the Rubinstein Scholarship with a series of remarkable paintings on the theme of Genesis, which earned him the enthusiastic patronage of the Sydney dealer Rudy Komon. A later series on the theme of the 16th Century martyr Edmund Campion was exhibited by Komon in Sydney, then Melbourne, where he received the commission that would change the course of his career - the huge ceiling in stained glass for the new NGV. His travels were resumed in Apr. 1965, when he visited Japan en route for the USA on a Harkness Fellowship. He exhibited approximately every two years in the 1980s including at Australian Galleries, Powell St. Melbourne; Philip Bacon, Brisbane; Greenhill, Adelaide. From 1970 he devoted his time mainly to large scale, commissioned works in stained glass such as the circular windown for Monash University in 1971; glass panels, La Trobe Uni., 1978; 47 windows and altar painting, Haileybury College, Keysborough, Vic., 1987/88; St James the Less Anglican Church, window, Mt Eliza 1988/89.

AWARDS: Asian travelling prize, judged in Melbourne, 1959; Crouch prize, 1959; Perth prize, 1960; Blake prize, 1963, 80; Georges Invitation Art prize, 1964; W.D & H. O Wills prize, 1964; Harkness Fellowship, 1965; OBE conferred 1969; Doctor of Laws (honoris causa), Monash Uni., 1972.

APPTS: Teaching, Melbourne School of Printing and Graphic Arts, 1952-56; Sir William Angliss School of Experiemental Cooking, c. 1956; Exhibitions Officer, NGV, 1956-60; member, CAAB, Canberra, - 1972; NGA Board, Canberra, - 1982.

REP: All Australian state galleries; Uni. of WA collection; Ballarat Gallery; MOMA, New York; Hamilton Art Centre, Canada.

BIB: All general books on contemporary Australian art including Smith, AP. The Campion Paintings, intro. Vincent Buckley, Grayflower Publications, Melbourne, 1962. Meanjin 2/1951 (Alan McCulloch, Leonard French, Artist of Promise). A&A 1/2/1963 (William Hannan, Leonard French); 6/3/1968 (Alan McCulloch, Carpet in the Sky, Leonard Frenchís Ceiling); 7/4/1970 (John Baily, Leonard French and Recent British Painting Adelaide Festival); 12/4/1975 (Patrick McCaughey, Leonard French's Raft Series).

REF: Alan and Susan McCulloch, The Enclyclopedia of Australian Art, Allen & Unwin, 1994

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