DUXBURY, Leslie

Leslie Duxbury (1921-2001) was one of the less well-known ‘Kitchen Sink’ artists. His paintings and sketches of the 1950s and onwards dealt with familiar working-class subjects: coal miners and workers unions, mothers with children or at work in the mills, and Welsh landscapes. During the early fifties, Duxbury lived with John Bratby and Edward Middleditch, primarily for fellow artistic inspiration, but also in role of landlord.

Duxbury attended the local School of Arts and Crafts in Acrington before enrolling at the Royal College of Art during the Second World War. It was during this period that he met Bratby and Middleditch. His teachers included John Minton, Carel Weight and Ruskin Spear.

For most of his life, Duxbury taught part-time so that he could devote himself to his own work, teaching painting at various London Art Schools: The Borough, Hammersmith, Camberwell, and finally Kingston.

In the 1960s he transferred his talents to printmaking, becoming head of the printmaking department at Kingston in 1967 and a senior lecturer in the 1970s, a post he held until his retirement in 1986. He died in October 2001, two weeks after his 80th birthday. His work is held in several national public collections.