The Energy Within - Leonard McComb RA
6 April –3 June 2023
BEAM Nottingham
Thursday–Saturday, 9am–5pm
or by appointment
“The character of life is movement. Everything moves, vibrates, pulsates and renews itself again. My work is about energy, asymmetry. The Pulsation of nature is due to inner forces, energies in nature offering and inward visitation. The energy of trees stretching and bending, their inside forces giving them a tense vitality. The tension of an apple,Its inside compactness like a world.” - Leonard McComb
This exhibition brings together watercolours, monoprints, etchings, bronze sculptures and drawings that capture the essence of this quote alongside archive material relating to McComb’s most important sculpture ‘Portrait of A Young Man Standing’ (1963–1983) with versions held at Manchester Art Gallery and Tate Britain.
‘The Energy Within’ is an exhibition that coincides with the launch of Beam Editions’ new 220 page book, Leonard McComb by Richard Davey.
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From poverty stricken Ireland to the heights of the arts establishment
Leonard McComb was the eldest of six siblings, and the son of an Irish protestant father, Archie McComb, and a catholic mother, Delia Bridgit. When the artist was still in his infancy the family moved from their native Northern Ireland to Manchester, initially to Moss Side and then Wythenshawe, to escape the high unemployment and appalling levels of poverty and the prejudices aimed at families with mixed religions that were rife throughout 1930s Britain .
This working-class suburb of Manchester offered little in terms of an artistic environment or education. Wythenshawe, like many suburban areas at the time, was developed to rehouse Manchester’s industrial workers that endured poverty in inner-city slums. It was an unlikely breeding ground for an artist at a time when access to a good education was rare and access to the arts was for the privileged few. Archie, McComb’s father, was a painter and decorator by trade and an amateur artist. While Archie’s paintings may have captured the young McComb’s imagination, it was perhaps the woodlands on the edges of Wythenshawe that inspired the artist in his formative years.
With the death of his father in his teens, McComb, once a young whimsical dreamer, had to quickly grow up, rising to the challenge of supporting his mother and five younger siblings working multiple jobs while studying. It was almost certainly these early life challenges that cast the artist’s work ethic that resulted in his exceptional talent and steely, ambitious character that helped his rise to the top.
Determined to pursue his education after his National Service, he enrolled at the Manchester School of art. With his newfound independence he excelled, winning a scholarship to the prestigious Slade School of Fine Art in the late 1950s where he completed a degree and postgraduate diploma. He went on to teach at various art schools, including Oxford Brookes University, Sir John Cass College, Slade School of Fine Art, Royal College of Art and Goldsmiths College, and in 1974 he founded the Sunningwell School of Art, Oxford.
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Having destroyed most of his early work, McComb was included in the landmark exhibition ‘The Human Clay’ held at the Hayward Gallery in 1976. In 1983 the exhibition ‘Leonard McComb: Drawing, Painting, Sculpture’ organised by the Museum of Modern Art, Oxford toured to the Serpentine Gallery, London; City Art Gallery, Manchester; Gardner Arts Centre, University of Sussex and the Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh. His work has also been included in important group shows at the Whitechapel Art Gallery (1982), the Tate Gallery (1984), the Hirshhorn Museum, Washington D.C. (1986) and the Museum of Modern Art, Brussels (1987).
McComb was elected Royal Academician in 1991 (ARA 1987) and in 1995 was elected Keeper of the Royal Academy, placing him in charge of the Royal Academy Schools until 1998. He was made an Honorary Member of the Royal Watercolour Society and the Royal Society of Printmakers in 1996. McComb lived and worked in London until his death in 2018.
Featured in major collections such as the National Portrait Gallery, The Tate, the British Museum, V&A collection with exhibitions at the Hayward Gallery, Venice Biennale, New York Studio School, Royal Academy of Arts, and Serpentine Gallery McComb is a giant of figurative painting and sculpture and one of the finest draughtsmen of his generation.
Available Work
Price Guide
Beam Editions is working with the Estate of Leonard McComb to place work in museum collections and on the sale of work to private individuals. If you are would like more information about any artwork and detailed quote please get in touch.
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