STANLEY LENCH (1934 – 2000)
Self Taught Artist

Stanley Lench was born and lived in Peckham, South London. At the age of 14 he was admitted to the Maudsley Hospital experiencing bouts of depression. Here he discovered art. He received no art training. As a young man he was influenced by cubism, ancient cultures, stained glass windows and the emergence of pop art. This helped him to develop a unique style. He fused all these influences into highly colourful patterned mosaics to portray stars of the silent screen, members of his family and figures from his imagination.

In 1955, at the age of 21, he was offered an exhibition at Helen Lessore's Beaux Art Gallery. It was a success and he was offered a place at the Royal College of Art in the Stained Glass Department. In 1958 he had another exhibition at the Beaux Art Gallery selling a portrait to the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Here his painting of Pola Negri was shown in an exhibition in 1959 alongside works by Pablo Picasso, Jackson Pollack and Georgia O' Keefe. Dame Edith Sitwell admired his work and bought two portraits he did of her.

MOMA - Portrait Exhibition Press Release

After his early artistic success he became a recluse. On at least two occasions Stanley received treatment, at the Bethlem Royal Hospital, for depression. In 1974 he began to work as an attendant at the Tate Gallery where he stayed for 18 years. At the Tate he observed important figures in the art world. He increasingly began to resent the 'bourgeois artistic elite' who failed to recognise the true artist in their midst.

Bethlem Museum of the Mind - Gallery

His education was interrupted during the war years. His main outlet, from the age of 14, was to express himself through his art. It is in his art he recorded his love of theatre and stars of the silent screen and his obsession with ageing celebrities. He used it to express his fears, frustration and anxiety about the lack of progress in his career as an artist.

Stanley Lench's portraits and drawings fall into two areas of interest. There are paintings of cultural icons. Stanley Lench, as a young man spent hours watching silent films. He admired the screen goddesses and the illusion they created. He loved the theatre and the ability of some actors to inhabit a role. He saw performances by many icons such as Gloria Swanson, Josephine Baker, Marlene Dietrich and in the 60's Mick Jagger, Dusty Springfield and Sandie Shaw.

There are a collection of personal drawings and watercolours which record the intense emotions he often felt. They reflect the inner regions of his mind.