Martin Leman
Painting
Martin Leman’s paintings celebrate his love of cats. His works on canvas have an abstract quality in their pattern, shape and colour, and are know for their warmth, humour and icon like quality, which is greatly influenced by the artist’s enthusiasm for Hollywood stars of the 40s and 50s. Enigmatic portraits of women, still life works and landscape are also subjects he has explored in recent years.
Martin Leman was born in 1934 in London. He attended Art school in Worthing, and later studied at The Central School of Art and Design in Holborn. For several years he worked as a graphic designer and taught at Hornsey College of Art, the London College of Printing, St. Martin̛̛s School of Art and Medway College of Art. His first book of cat paintings, ‘Comic & Curious Cats̛ was published in 1979, and he then became a full-time painter. Since then Martin has published a further 28 books and held numerous one man shows and mixed exhibitions in London, and has also shown regularly in St Ives. He is a member of the Royal Society of British Artists and the Royal Watercolour Society.
