Leonard French

Leonard French ( born October 8, 1928 in Brunswick, Australia) is an Australian designer and artist who works with glass.

His most famous work in Australia is an artistically designed glass roof in the National Gallery of Victoria, one of the largest glass art in the world.

Life and work

Leonard studied French from 1944 to 1947 advertising design at the Melbourne Technical College in Melbourne. In 1949 he exhibited for the first time from painting and wall painting in Tye 's Gallery in Melbourne. From 1949 to 1951 he undertook study trips through Belgium, Ireland, the UK and the Netherlands. He stayed a long time at The Abbey Arts Centre and Museum in New Barnet in the region of London, where also other Australian artists, such as Grahame King, Inge Neufeld and Robert Klippel were. From 1952 to 1956 he was a lecturer at the Melbourne School of Printing and Graphic Arts. Subsequently he was employed from 1956 to 1960 at the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne as a curator. During this time he began his series of pictures Campion, which he exhibited in 1961.

French won the 1959 Peace Prize Congress and received scholarships for study in India, Indonesia, China and Japan. In 1962 and 1963 he went on study trips to Italy, Spain, France, Great Britain and Greece, where he remained a long time on the island of Samos. In 1965, his French Samos miniatures in Melbourne, Perth and Adelaide in Australia, and he went on in the same year a study trip to the USA.

French lives and works in Heathcote.

Persian carpet of light

French won the 1963 commission for a large glass window for the Great Hall at the National Gallery of Victoria, solidified his reputation as an artist in Australia. The present in 13.72 meters, 60.90 x 15.24 meters large glazed roof in the Great Hall of the National Gallery of Victoria was his most famous work, which consists of 224 composite triangles, which weighs 300 kg each. The plant is also known as Persian carpet of light ( Persian carpet of light ). In the big glass box for example birds, a turtle and a snake are hidden, which generate in sunlight patterns on the walls.

It lasted from 1965 to 1970, until the glass artwork was completed, and other such orders followed from Monash University in 1971, La Trobe University in 1978 and Haileybury College in 1987.

Work (selection)

• National Library of Australia in Canberra: lead- glazed window
• Australian National University: Seven Days of Creation ( The Seven Days of Creation)
• Campion series (1961 )
• Samos miniatures
• Sinbad series
• The Burial ( The Burial )
• National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne: lead- glazed roof in the Great Hall ( 1968)
• Monash University ( Clayton campus): Alpha and Omega (lead- glazed windows, 41 - part series ) ( 1971) in the Robert Blackwood Hall
• La Trobe University Sculpture Park: The Four Seasons ( The Four Seasons ) ( 1978)