Robert Lenkiewicz was born in London in 1941, the son of Jewish refugees. He spent his childhood in the hotel run by his parents, whose elderly residents included a number of survivors of the Nazi concentration camps. His interest in painting was sparked as a child and from an early age he worked prolifically and on a large scale. At the age of sixteen he was accepted at St Martins College of Art, he later attended the Royal Academy but always pursued an independent course as a painter.
Robert has been known to throw open the doors of his studio to anyone in need of a roof: down and outs, addicts, criminals and the mentally ill congregated there. These individuals were the subjects of many of his paintings and culminated in the exhibition of The Vagrancy Project- hundreds of paintings of 'the dossers' and a large book of notes written by 'the dossers' themselves. Lenkiewicz hoped that the exhibition, and the down and outs' own stories, would illuminate the plight of these 'invisible people'. This theme was to be used consistently throughout Lenkiewicz's career. Projects such as Mental Handicap, Old Age, Death, and Suicide followed as Lenkiewicz continued to examine the lives of hidden sections of the community...
In later years Lenkiewicz embarked upon an ironic study of relationships in The Painter with Women: Observations on the Theme of the Double and exhibited many of the paintings at the Birmingham International Convention Centre in 1994. More than 35,000 people visited the exhibition in a single week.
Folowing this there was a Retrospective of his work at Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery in 1997.
Sadly, Robert died in 2002.
The official website is at http://www.lenkiewiczfoundation.org
